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A RIG-ID EARTH 

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BEING DEVOTED TO 

Geology as Applied to Mining. 


EMBRACING A REVIEW OF ACCEPTED THEORIES. 


/ BY / 

[ / STEPHEN BARTON. 

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PRICE, $2.00. 



J. C. WARD, General Agents, 64 Main St., Visalia, Cal. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year A. D. 188 
BY STEPHEN BARTON, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 




PREFACE. 


In treating of geology as applied to mining the author has 
been prompted by the hope of contributing aid in arresting a 
class of mining exploration which have generally ended in 
disaster to the miner and which he believes will continue to do 
so. If ore bodies bear any relation to a melted interior other 
than as a part of the earth, that fact remains to be proven, 
notwithstanding the fidelity the miners of the Pacific Slope 
have-shown as disciples of the igneous theory. Let the reader 
draw a picture of the energy exhausted, the hopes blighted, 
the millions squandered, in a vain effort to connect the source 
of rich deposits with the effects of fusion. 

Reared amid the busy appliances of a mining community, 
a half century of close observation in the mines of New Jer¬ 
sey, Wisconsin, and California, has served to convince the 
author that heat was not an agent in the formation of ore 
bodies; and only in instances, and in slight degree, an effect. 
The suggestion is therefore presented that the theory of a 
melted interior has no foundation in scientific truth; that 
there is no loss of heat—either by the earth, the spheres, or 
the system, and that the universe itself reposes on a stable 
structure. (iii) 



AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO. 


Chakles Lyell, author of “Elements of Geology;” James D. Dana, 
author of “Manuel of Geology;” “ Whitney’s Geology of California;” J. 
Ross Browne, author of “Resources of the States and Territories of the 
Pacific;” “ Whitney’s Metallic Wealth of the United States;” Bradley A. 
Fisher on Electricity; A. Ure, “Arts, Mechanics, and Mines;” Overman 
on the Reduction of Silver Ores; Pitkenton on Mechanics; Jackson on 
Minerals and Fossils; Dawson and Logan on Archian Formations; Sir Hum¬ 
phrey Davy on the Radiation of Heat; Berzelius, Ingenhousz, Pictet, and 
Caletet as authorities on Chemistry. 



CONTENTS 


PAGE. 

Introduction. 7 

Continent Making. 9 

Igneous Action. 18 

Clacial Epochs. 25 

Caloric. 29 

Radiation of Heat . 33 

The Earth Under the Spectroscope. 38 

The Atomic Theory. 41 

Fossils in California ... 42 

Trends and Reliefs. 46 

Formation of Oxide. 48 

Electric Currents. 70 

Formation of Ore Bodies. 71 

Electro-Chemical Agencies. 87 

Concluding Remarks. 96 


















8 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


law of compensation governs continents and oceans; and from 
such a standpoint to deduce the rule that the depth of the 
smaller ocean is proportioned to the width of the larger. 

One great fact all leading geologists notice while they leave 
it unexplained. And that fact is, that the continents are all 
grouped in one hemisphere. They do not seem even to notice 
that nearly all the elevated mountain ranges of the world 
stand nearly upon the periphery of these hemispheres. This 
last fact would be an awkward one to explain in connection 
with the theory of the fluid condition of the earth’s interior. 
On the contrary the location of these mountain ranges goes 
far to prove the rigidity of the earth, since their combined 
weight subjects its frame-work to a thousand times the strain 
produced by the forces represented in the tides. Is there not 
then a possibility that the earth is a rigid mass? 

Let us examine the question, and at the same time inquire 
into the means by which the two hemispheres are balanced. 
The South Pacific, though broad, is believed to be very shal¬ 
low. Directly on the other side of the earth is the .North 
Atlantic, which, though narrow, presents the deepest sound¬ 
ings yet revealed to science. 

On the theory of a rigid earth the mountain ranges may 
be assumed to go far toward balancing each other. It now 
remains to balance deep seas and low table-lands against a 
broad, shallow ocean with Australia in its center. 


Continent Making. 


When the grandest mountain chain referred to in the re¬ 
corded history of the earth’s structure, and located on the 
southern margin of Hudson’s Bay, was being ground down 
by the southerly flow of the oft-recurring ice-continent, 
much of the matter was carried to the southeast by the gen¬ 
eral slope of the surface, and deposited in the Atlantic form¬ 
ing the banks of Newfoundland. The deep trough of the 
Atlantic being thus filled at that point, the course of the 
tropical current was turned from the polar sea, where, ac¬ 
cording to geological data, its modifying influences had previ¬ 
ously been felt. Hence, that region is no longer susceptible of 
producing those forms of vegetation found imbedded in the 
coal-measures of the frigid zone. 

One of the strongest arguments in favor of the existence 
of a former high temperature of the earth is this same evi¬ 
dence of a former mild climate in high latitudes. If, as we 
have already suggested, glacial action cut off the deep-sea 
connection between the Atlantic and the frozen ocean with 
a powerful warm current setting in that direction, it may be 
that the ice-continent, which, subsequently with each pre- 
cessional revolution of the equinoxes, must have spread out 
over all lands and shallow waters of high latitudes, had not 
yet invaded the polar sea. The evidence seems to be that 
glacial action, or at least the southern flow of ice over the 
American continent, was in greatest force during the Tertiary 
and Quartinary Periods. It may be urged that large bowlders 
and heavy granite blocks are not known to have been trans¬ 
ported in any other period than that of the Quartinary. 
To this it may be answered, however, that the flow of sedi- 
mentarv matter from the north, though possibly without 
(9) 



IO 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


bowldei' 3 , was in such quantities from the earliest Silurian 
down to the Tertiary as to utterly confound the reasoner as 
to the source of supply. To assume that a continent was 
built of the ruins of a single mountain range, is to assume 
that the time was when lofty mountain ranges produced 
more inequalities of pressure on the earth’s crust than has 
been sustained in more recent periods. This would be rea¬ 
soning in the wrong direction to prove the former fluidity of 
the earth. But the depth of sedimentary formations on the 
margins of seas is what Mr. Dana has most relied on to prove 
the crushing in or folding together of sedimentary forma¬ 
tions in the groin of the continent. To this it may be an¬ 
swered that great depths of sedimentary matter are what 
may be expected at points where mud-bearing currents en¬ 
counter deep, still water. 

During the Champlain Period the sea was at a higher level 
in the northern part of North America than it is at the pres¬ 
ent. Without stopping to inquire into the effect of chemical 
agencies in changing the level of lands and continents, it may 
be suggested that this change of level may have been due to 
causes already noticed. 

The transporting of a continent to the southward would 
to that extent change the center of gravity of the earth, 
and cause the whole solid frame-work of the earth to push 
itself northward through the fluid elements to the extent of 
balancing the matter transported to the south. While an 
ice-continent occupied the whole of the frigid zone it would 
have the effect to depress the land for the time, and bring 
an equal amount of the fluid matter toward that pole of the 
earth, while the melting of the ice would disperse that 
amount of fluid all over the earth, and would thus raise the 
land at the pole. 

So far as is known the Arcbian includes the Azoic. In 
other words, sedimentary rocks merge into the oldest crys¬ 
talline formations. The carboniferous era, so called, is more 
carboniferous in some regions than in others, but as to 
whether it is more carboniferous than other eras is still de¬ 
batable. Lime, alumina, silex and soda are pretty evenly di¬ 
vided between the Arch inn and the Tertiary. 


CONTINENT MAKING . 


i 


The leading champions of the igneous theory are forced to 
admit that the coal-measures include all kinds of sedimentary 
rocks, such as shale, sandstone, millstone-grit, limestone, etc., 
etc. Mr. Dana admits that the rocks of the coal-measure 
must be told by their fossils and not by their composition. 

Immense veins of iron ore are found inArcbian formations; 
and these veins have been regarded by some geologists as 
the chief repository of the metal, but when we reflect that 
much of the solidifying influences, even in alluvial deposits, 
is due to the heavy impregnation of iron, we are almost 
forced to conclude that continents being built up are com¬ 
posed of the same percentages of material as those being 
‘torn down. If the theory of a carboniferous era cannot be 
sustained, then the age of steam vanishes. 

Let us reflect, for one moment, what would be the result if 
the earth was a fluid mass and the continents all grouped in 
one hemisphere. That the one hemisphere exactly balances 
the other is too self-evident and too well established by the 
laws of astronomy to admit of question. Mow, let us sup¬ 
pose that enough lead rested upon the floor of the Southern 
Pacific to balance the continents. Would it not crush through 
the thin crust of the earth and sink to the center? In such a 
case the continents would be submerged. 

Mow, suppose that this terrible strain acted upon the thin 
crust of the earth at the time of the earthquake of Lisbon, 
when the whole earth was shaken from center to circumfer¬ 
ence, and when, according to Mr. Lyell, ships cruising in the 
South Pacific experienced a shock as if they had struck a 
rock. With a fluid earth such a shock must have sunk either 
the continents or the heavy matter which balances them. 
The amount of curvature on the earth’s surface by which 
the arc of the crust must be sustained, if the earth is fluid, 
is about eight inches on a mile. 

A wave of vibration exceeding this would break this arc, 
and let the continents fall in. But if it is answered that it 
is buoyant, and floats on the melted matter, then we come 
again to the same difficulty encountered in the start. 

But we must not credit the advocates of the igneous 


12 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


theory with any violent assumption, A just statement of 
the theory would probably be that a modicum of the weight 
of the ocean-bed is represented by folding along the margins 
of the continents, while, for the most part, the continents 
and the whole earth’s crust are sustained by buoyancy. 

There are several objections to this theory of the cooling 
process:— 

1st. If the continents’ and earth’s crust are merely con¬ 
gealed portions of the matter of a molten sea, then the fact 
of cooling should add ponderosity instead of buoyancy, and 
the continents should sink. 

2d. Admitting the buoyancy to stand as a fact, though un¬ 
explained, then the earth’s crust is the thickest where the 
greatest amount of buoyancy is required, viz., under the 
continent. Therefore, the folding should be in the deepest 
trough of the ocean instead of along the margins of the con¬ 
tinents. 

A paradox is encountered, however, when we come to the 
proposition that the bed of the ocean is sinking by this same 
cooling process of the interior. If the interior of the earth 
is shrinking to the extent of producing the mountains, by 
folding, then the sinking of that portion of the crust which 
is several miles the thinest cannot be, except the ponderosity 
of the crust is greater than the melted matter, and the strain 
would have a tendency to break the arc, and cave inward the 
bed of deep seas. In the latter case it is clear that the 
machinery of the world is run on a most precarious plan, and 
the sinking of the ocean bed may at any time break the curve 
of the arc, and let the heavy matter settle to the bottom, and 
the melted matter spread over the surface. 

If the ocean is growing deeper, there is an increase in 
the amount of water on the face of the earth. This extra 
supply of water could hardly have been drawn from the at¬ 
mosphere, for these reasons:— 

1. The whole atmosphere, if condensed to the specific 
gravity of water, would only represent thirty-three feet and 
four inches of water over the entire earth, or, say fifty feet 
over the surface of the ocean; and thus the fossils of the car- 


CONTINENT MAKING. 


3 


boniferous epochs must have subsisted under a pressure of 
twenty atmospheres, w T hich their structure is not claimed to 
prove. 

2. The advocates of the igneous theory have the visible 
.supply of oxygen (one of the constituent elements of both 
air and water) constantly drawn upon in the oxidizing of 
melted matter while cooling. If we accept this igneous 
theory, we must conclude that hydrogen has been disengaged 
from its combination with oxygen in the form of water, 
and that owing to its levity it must form an upper stratum 
to our atmosphere, and that the depth of this stratum must 
increase in proportion as the supply of oxygen is absorbed 
by the solid earfh. With the loss of oxygen the supply of 
water must diminish. If the oxygen, entering the solid 
earth, is drawn from the air, then that fact would account 
for a loss, which as yet has not been detected, without leav¬ 
ing any chance for the conversion of air into water to in¬ 
crease the depth of the ocean. 

The convenience of this mode of reasoning will suggest 
itself to the ordinary mind if it can be shown that both high 
mountains and deep seas are produced by a mere shrinkage of 
the earth’s crust. The evidence is that the retiring of the 
ocean from former sea-levels is much the greater in the re¬ 
gion of the poles. Now, astronomy teaches that the length of 
the'day has not varied more than one three-hundredth part of 
a second since the time of the first recorded eclipse, about 
two thousand years ago, and, therefore, if there has been a 
shrinkage of the earth there has been a loss of diurnal ve¬ 
locity and centrifugal force in almost exactly the same ratio. 
This of itself would be a strange coincidence. But when 
we consider that this loss of centrifugal force would tend to 
allow the ocean to retire, to some extent, towards the flat¬ 
tened region of the poles, we see the logic is at fault. The 
observed facts point the other way. 

The fluctuations of coast lines are not explained by the 
theory of cooling. It will hardly be claimed by the advo¬ 
cates of the folding process that the same force unfolds it 
again, and yet there are numerous evidences of these fluctua. 


14 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


tions of sea-level having acted both ways during the historic 
period. There have been very great fluctuations of the west 
coast of South America within the last three hundred years; 
but there is one notable case mentioned in every standard work 
on geology of the present age, which may be cited as an index 
to a rule; and in doing so I will quote Mr. Dana, for he seems 
to be the leading champion of the igneous theory, an-i the 
facts set forth by him will be accepted as data by all. He 
says:-— 

“The temple of Jupiter Serapis, at Puzznoli, was originally 
one hundred and thirty-four feet long by one hundred and fif¬ 
teen feet wide, and the roof was supported by fifty-six col¬ 
umns, each forty-two feet high and five feet in diameter. 
Three of these columns are now standing; they bear evidence, 
however, that they were once, for a considerable time, sub¬ 
merged to half their height. The lower twelve feet is 
smooth; for nine feet above this they are penetrated by 
lithodomous, or boring shells, and remains of the shells (a 
species now living in the Mediterranean), were found in the 
holes. The columns, when submerged, were consequently 
buried in the mud of the bottom for twelve feet, and were 
then surrounded by water nine feet deep. The pavement of 
the temple is submerged. Five feet below it there is a second 
pavement, proving that these oscillations had gone on before 
the temple was deserted by the Romans. It has been re¬ 
cently stated, that for some time previous to 1845, a slow 
sinking had'been going on, and that since then there has been 
a gradual rising.” (It is proper to state that this Puzznoli is 
in Southern Italy.) 

There are reasoners who claim that the bed of the ocean 
is sinking from the weight of the mud and silt which is ac¬ 
cumulating in certain regions. If the earth’s crust is thin 
enough to yield to such a force, then what is it that sustains 
the mountains and continents above the level of the sea? 
Such an argument needs no reply. 

Attention has already been drawn to the manner in which 
the solid frame-work of the earth behaves while the fluid 
ocean is being drawn from one hemisphere to the other with 


CONTINENT MAKING. 


15 


the attraction of an ice-continent on the pole; or, perhaps, more 
properly, the manner in which the solid frame-work of the 
earth is shoved through the fluids by the weight of an ice- 
continent on the pole. But in view of the fact that some 
writers dwell upon the weight of submerged mud-flats in the 
bed of the ocean, it may be proper to give this subject a 
more careful examination. 

Whether it is the attraction of the ice-continent on distant 
fluids, or its weight on solids in proximity, are only different 
ways of stating the same thing. The distant fluids and the 
distant solids are both' attracted in proportion to their 
weight; but only the fluid moves because the solids are held 
in position by the weight of the attracting force, which rests 
upon the opposite end of the solid earth. 

Certainly it will be claimed that the ice-continent is a thing 
of slow growth, and that very little strain is encountered by 
the frame-work of the earth at one time-; and it may be 
claimed that when the movement has once taken place the 
strain ceases. This last portion of this claim cannot be al¬ 
lowed. Suppose that the transfer of water to the Southern 
Hemisphere raised mountain peaks ten miles above the level 
of the sea on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. This certainly 
would subject the frame-work of the earth to a terrible 
strain. Then again when the mud-flats, formed in the ocean 
by the melting of the ice at the North, were laid bare by the 
retiring of the water, and the North American continent was 
lifted from one thousand to several thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, there certainly would be a greater strain 
here than there was when the ocean soundings were more 
than a mile deep over most of the continent. 

A tidal wave representing more than five miles in depth 
at the pole would be ascertain in its effect as it was slow in its 
movements; and yet the proof of the existence of a rigid 
earth is the sequel of its effects. 

Mr. Dana admits that the South Pacific is only twelve 
thousand eight hundred feet deep, while soundings have been 
taken north of the Bermudas, in the North Atlantic, twenty- 
five thousand five hundred feet deep. 


16 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


The continents are but an insignificant portion of the earth's 
surface. The imaginary line dividing the continental hemi¬ 
sphere from the oceanic hemisphere, passes over the highest 
part of South America, leaving most of the Andes on the 
oceanic side. It runs parallel with, and in close proximity 
to, the Rocky Mountains, and then bending southward along 
the coast of Japan, runs nearly parallel with the Himalayas 
in Asia, and the Mountains of the Moon in Africa. If we 
deduct from the calculation these elevated areas, which on 
the theory of a rigid earth would balance each other, we 
shall find that a shoaling of the broad expanse of the South¬ 
ern Pacific by three thousand or four thousand feet over the 
depth of other seas, would fully balance the low table-lands in 
the center of the continental hemisphere. Thus while treating 
the Antarctic continent as an unknown factor we see that 
the earth is apparently very little out of balance. 

It has been urged by some that the flattening of the earth 
at the poles proves its fluidity. To assume that the earth 
should have been a true sphere would have just as much war¬ 
rant as to assume that this was the original purpose of nat¬ 
ure as relating to the shape of grapes or eggs. 

The whole universe revolves around a common center, and 
this movement is the parent of all minor rotation. Matter 
descending from a larger orbit to a lesser one, is accelerated 
in its movement by the descent, and at the same time attracts 
interior matter away from the center of motion, thereby 
causing it to lose velocity. Therefore:— 

Matter coming from points exterior to an orbit strikes the out¬ 
side of the nebula in a direction oblique to its course , and com¬ 
municates rotation in proportion to relative bulk and lessening 
of orbit. 

Hence diurnal rotation and a flattened pole is a part of the 
law governing the aggregation and growth of nebulous mat¬ 
ter, and proves nothing so far as it relates to a fluid con¬ 
dition of the earth. 

This simple reason enables us to discern the following 
law:— 

Planets with a broad sphere of attraction are remarkable for 


CONTINENT MAKING. 17 

great diurnal velocity , and hence for the elevation of their equa¬ 
tors , and for the depression of their poles. 

By thus harmonizing sciences we may gain an insight into 
the laws governing the whole universe,— 

The depression of the earth's poles is geometrically propor¬ 
tioned to the earth's sphere of attraction in the nebular hypothe¬ 
sis, and is from its primitive structure. 

Facts are stubborn things, and if it can be shown that the 
expansive force of rock in quarries is parallel with the axis 
of the mountain chain, and at right angles with coast lines, 
it would seem to silence the theory that there is a constant 
crushing force exerted from the direction of the sea. 

Prof. W. H. Niles observed such an effect in the gneiss 
quarries of Monson, Massachusetts. One mass, three hundred 
and fifty-four feet long, eleven feet wide, and three feet thick, 
expanded an inch and a half in a northerly and southerly di¬ 
rection after being released from the quarry. In the absence 
of any evidence of expanding east and west we are entitled 
to infer that the expanding force had found vent in the di¬ 
rection of least lateral pressure, or toward the sea. Wecer- 
tainly are entitled to infer that there was no crushing force 
exerted from the direction of the sea, else the expansion had 
been greatest in that direction when the pressure was re¬ 
moved. This we understand to be a universal law of statics 
and dynamics. How any scientist could use such a fact as 
evidence that there was a crushing force exerted from the 
sea seems past comprehension. 


2 


Igneous Theory. 


The theory of a rigid earth encounters one difficulty, how¬ 
ever, which can only be overcome by the complete overthrow 
of the accepted philosophy respecting the radiation of heat. 
If heat radiates into space the earth and sun are both cool¬ 
ing off. Admit this proposition and the mind is carried back 
to the time'when the earth’s surface glowed with the most 
intense fusion, like that is supposed to be which enables the 
sun to send its benign influences through the solar system. 
Once establish this theory and it becomes apparent that 
eternity itself must perish. 

The French philosophy respecting the existence of the 
substance called caloric was overthrown by Sir Humphrey 
Davy, by generating heat by rubbing two pieces of ice to¬ 
gether. The French theory gave us a rather reasonable ex¬ 
planation of the condition of the change when the different 
elements of water are separated. It could be claimed that 
the liberated hydrogen absorbed several thousand times its 
own bulk of caloric from adjacent space or matter, and pro¬ 
duced that intense coldness so observable in the presence of 
chemical action producing such a result. There are many 
questions in science which can only be solved on the theory 
that there is such a substance as caloric. On the other hand 
the facts observable in Sir Humphrey Davy’s experiments 
might perhaps be explained in another way. If we should 
conclude that friction changed the prime equivalent ratio by 
which caloric combines with other substances, it would seem 
to offer just as reasonable an explanation of observed phe¬ 
nomena as the one accepted. 

So far as we use the present as a key to reveal the past 
we are able to make the world unfold to us its own history. 

( 18 ) 



IGNEOUS THEORY. 


19 


Waves lashed the shores of the Silurian sea as they do of 
the seas of to-day. But when we go beyond the Archian 
we find our geologists entering a sea of speculation as to an 
era of fusion, while there is really no evidence to show but 
what the oldest known rocks are sedimentary. 

The theory of fusion has been applied to the production of 
veins bearing metallic ores. That there are dykes of erupted 
matter traversing various formations cannot be questioned 
for one moment, and that metallic deposits have in some cases 
formed by the side of these dykes will readily be admitted. 
But to assume that sulphide of lead is in some cases injected 
into the fissure by eruption, and from the top in another, 
seems absurd; and the more particularly since lead in a fluid 
form is not known to have existed on the surface of the 
earth. The discovery of silver ore among the sand and 
gravel beds of Colorado has nearly upset this theory, and if 
cubes of galena are found in the same formation the igneous 
theory as applied to metallic veins will doubtless be aban¬ 
doned. G-alena has long since been found in a fissure having 
the bearing of the magnetic pole, and running through 
a horizontal formation, with an unbroken formation of 
other varieties of rock above and below, through which 
the fissure did not penetrate, showing that the galena 
did not come either from above or below. Other evi¬ 
dences, such as bones imbedded in galena, have shown that 
galena occurring in the fissures of rocks of the Lower Silu¬ 
rian Age had been deposited during the Tertiary Period, or 
after the existence of mammals of the present type. All 
this occurs in horizontal formations which show no trace of 
volcanic action, and in places where communication with 
the fissure is shut off by solid formations above and below, 
through which no fissure runs, and where the only approach 
to such fissure is from the bluff of a ravine which cuts down 
through the formation. Facts equally conclusive have been 
known to intelligent miners for a third of a century. The 
evidence, therefore, is that heat was not an agent in the for¬ 
mation of mineral veins, for having demonstrated that in 
numerous cases the galena was formed under present condi- 


20 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


tions, we are entitled to conclude that all galenas were formed 
under similar conditions. We are entitled to go further, and 
conclude that all mineral veins of the character of those 
bearing galena were formed in the same way. 

Veins have been divided into several classes by geologists: 
as true fissures, ribbon veins, gash veins, etc., etc., depending 
mainly upon size and extent. A true fissure has been supposed, 
however, to grow wider as it enters the earth. This theory 
of increase is necessary to the theory of the volcanic origin 
of true fissures. A true fissure has therefore been supposed 
to increase in size to a depth far beyond the reach of practi¬ 
cal explorations. It has cost the miners of the Pacific States 
hundreds of millions of dollars to explode this theory. It is 
astonishing how disciples of the igneous theory, as relating 
to, formation of metal-hearing veins, should cling to an ac¬ 
cepted dogma in the face of observed facts. Still more as¬ 
tonishing is the manner in which they will attempt to recon¬ 
cile those facts with the accepted theory. 

J. Ross Brown, in his work entitled “Resources of the 
States and Territories of the Pacific,” in speaking of the 
Mother Lode, which runs from the town of Mariposa to the 
town of Amador, almost continuous, except that river gorges 
more than two thousand feet deep cut below it, says: 
“Streams seem to have made their beds where the Mother 
Lode is split up into a number of branches, as at the Merced, 
Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Mokelumne Rivers, and Max¬ 
well’s Creek, while in those places where the lode is wide 
and solid there are high hills.” 

If he had said that the lead is wide and solid where the 
hills are highest he would not have been conveying an ab¬ 
surd inference. Whoever will explore the towering peaks, 
the overhanging precipices, and yawning chasms of the 
Sierra .Nevada Mountains and will then glance down among 
the lower foot-hills and say the Mother Lode had anything 
whatever to do in giving character to the landscape, will be 
only making himself appear insane to anyone acquainted 
with the geography of the western slope of those mountains. 
It is an exception to a general rule that a metal-bearing vein 


IGNEOUS THEORY . 


21 


resists the action of time and the elements, better than the 
country rock. The exceptions on the Mother Lode are at 
Tuttletown and Carson Hill. Even in the few places where 
veins stand out in bold relief, as at the two places named, 
the configuration of the country leads to the conclusion that 
the denuding forces were accelerated in their action on the 
walls of the vein by the sulphur and acid gases generated 
and escaping from the vein itself. ( Professor Whitney is more 
cautious in regard to the ultimate depth of what are called 
true fissure veins. In bis ‘‘Metallic Wealth of the United 
States/’ he says: “ True fissure veins are continuous in, depth 
and their metalliferous contents have not been found to have 
been exhausted or to have been sensibly or permanently 
decreased at any depth which has yet been obtained in 
mining.” 

The observed facts lead us to suppose that scarcely a 
metal-bearing lode in the known world reaches to the depth 
of one mile. The Mother Lode is nowhere more than three 
thousand feet deep, and it is doubtful whether any trace of 
the Comstock will be found four thousand feet deep. The 
increase in the size of a lode with depth only shows the ex¬ 
tent of decomposition and decay near the surface. When a 
lode is mined out, the walls invariably spring in and the 
fissure becomes narrower. The same result follows when 
the vein is partially decomposed by the action of the ele¬ 
ments; but low down in the earth, beyond the action of 
these forces, all fissures grow narrower with depth. Of 
course the veins here referred to are the metal-bearing veins. 
Mr. Dana, in his “Manual of Geology” (page 109), says: 
“ Yeins are divided in dykes and proper veins.” 

The evidence points to origins and forces so widely dif¬ 
ferent that it would seem that dykes and veins might each 
have been considered under separate heads; but it is prob¬ 
able the learned professor wrote that sentence before he 
heard of deposits of lead and silver among the gravel beds of 
Colorado. 

It is now becoming a recognized fact that the temperature 
of the walls of the Comstock decreases in geometrical ratio 


22 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


with the square of the distance to which they may be pene¬ 
trated horizontally at right angles to the trend of the lode. 
Thus it is proved to a demonstration that the excessive heat 
encountered by the miners is generated within the walls of 
the vein. The sulphurets are converted into sulphates and 
oxides by the action of air and water, while at the same time 
heat and sulphuric acid gas are evolved. 

This reasoning from effect to cause adopted, as we have 
se'en, by J. Eoss Brown and others, would credit the quartz, 
lodes with determining the course of the rivers and the whole 
configuration of the landscape; and all this in order to sus¬ 
tain the theory of the eruptive origin of metallic veins. On 
the other hand, if we read the facts as they are, we shall find 
that in every gorge three thousand feet deep there is no 
Mother Lode, and that no tunnel piercing the river bluffs at 
that level has ever reached the lode. 

Much theorizing has been indulged in as to the prospect of 
finding a depth in the Comstock at which the vein would be 
found to follow a vertical* rent in the older rock of the foot 
wall instead of following the seam between that and the met- 
amorphic rock above. This theorizing was sufficient to keep 
the great Savage pump running for years after the various 
explorations thus rendered possible had q>enetrated the earth 
below the realm of profitable mining. The millions upon 
millions of dollars thus expended in fruitless search were not 
entirely thrown away however; for they have aided to es¬ 
tablish what might reasonably have been inferred before, 
viz.: That metal-bearing lodes are formed by forces acting 
near the surface of the earth, and that it is the existence of a 
fissure and not the question of its origin which determines 
the position of a lode. Metal-bearing lodes, then, are formed 
in fissures. These fissures may mark a rent caused by vol¬ 
canic action. They may occupy the dividing line between 
two distinct formations; or they may displace a stratum of 
vegetable matter buried in the earth. 

The observed facts teach us that heat is not requisite to 
the formation of ore bodies, not even enough to impair the 
texture of vegetable fiber or to decarbonize the thigh bone 


IGNEOUS THEORY. 


23 


of a buffalo. They also teach that though ore bodies are 
found occupying rocks undisturbed by volcanic action v since 
the Silurian Era, they have nevertheless been formed since 
the appearance of mammals and dycotyladons. The infer¬ 
ence is that the causes which formed them are acting in full 
force throughout the earth to-day. 

While it is urged that igneous forces have no direct rela¬ 
tion to the formation of metal-bearing veins, it is not pro¬ 
posed to ask miners or scientists to close their eyes to 
evidences of internal heat. Many writers have enlarged on 
the relation of volcanic action to the formation of crystalline 
rocks. A curious effect of heat in the formation of crystals 
may be seen in the formation which I had the good fortune 
to discover on the South Fork of Kaweah River, in Tulare 
County, California. 

Near the east line of Sec. 16, T. 18 S., of R. 29 E., just 
south of the deepest channel of the stream and four rods 
southeast of a perpendicular fall, appears an elliptical figure in 
the face of the smooth, water-worn granite which is in sharp 
contrast with its surroundings. The figure is five feet nine 
inches long from north to south and three feet three inches 
wide from, east to west. It appears as if a well had been 
carefully chiseled in the smooth granite, and then filled with 
melted matter of similar material to the surrounding rock. 
This melted matter seems to have been compactly filled 
with pebbles of nearly uniform size, and about as large as 
apples. The material composing the three formations seems 
to be the same; but the great distinguishing feature is in 
the form of crystallization. The crystals are very large in 
the granite wall and also in what appears to have been the 
fluid matrix in which the pebbles are incased. The two 
are separated by a very thin casing of quartz and a coating 
of what appears to be black oxide of manganese. Each of the 
pebbles are similarly coated. The hornblende crystals in 
the pebbles are excessively small near the surface of the 
pebbles and increase in size with marked uniformity toward 
the center. From the peculiarities of the crystallization it 
may be inferred that this is what once served as a vent for 


24 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH\ 


the discharge of melted matter; and that the pebbles were 
formed while the fluid was in motion. If this surmise is cor¬ 
rect then future research will be able to prove that this 
column of pebbles may be traced downward to an indefinite 
depth. In this connection reference may be made to a theory 
that an earthquake belt betrays a weakness in the earth’s 
crust near the margin of the principal oceans, and that no 
evidence of severe earthquake convulsions is to be met within 
the interior of continents. It is therefore suggested that 
persons who adopt this theory would do well to examine the 
region of the Black Hills in the Territory of Wyoming; Per¬ 
haps no country in the world betrays such evidence of modern 
convulsions of the same magnitude and force. 

There may be a lack of quantity of lava formations, but 
Hayden has shown that at Gothic Mountain, Colorado, a de¬ 
posit of trachite has been erupted and deposited to a depth 
of about two thousand feet over a horizontal formation of sed¬ 
imentary rock. This seems to have all resulted from one 
eruption. Similar eruptions on a smaller scale, are numerous 
in the region under consideration, and some of them repose 
on sand of the Quartinary Age. In a general way it may be 
assumed that spasmodic eruptions, in the interior of the con¬ 
tinent are few because the available supply of water is limited, 
and that therefore volcanic forces are continuous in action, as 
at Yellowstone Park. The Pev. Titus Coan has been quoted 
as showing that the eruptions of Kilauea, in the Hawaiian Isl¬ 
ands, was more intense after heavy rains; and it is asserted 
that the same effect has been observed elsewhere. This would 
tend to prove that eruptions were governed by the supply of 
water, but would lead us away from the interior in searching 
for cause. 


Glacial Epochs. 


Doubtless volcanic action has formed dykes and fissures 
in all ages, has given dip to different formations, and has 
changed the relative levels of continents and ocean beds. 
To assume that the American Continent was built up out of 
nothing, and that it extended from a small group of mount¬ 
ain peaks to the south of Hudson’s Bay till the whole conti¬ 
nent was constructed, is to argue against analogy. Tearing 
down and building up have always been contemporaneous 
and compensatory. There is no evidence furnished by the 
composition of the different formations to show that any 
large quantities of carbon have been drawn from the atmos¬ 
phere, in building the rocks of any ago, in excess of the car¬ 
bon returned to the atmosphere by decomposition. Vari¬ 
ations of climate have occurred. Some ages have en¬ 
joyed a climate more uniform throughout the world than 
others, and these may all be referred to the effect of 
shoaling of deep seas, whereby the heat of the tropics was 
transferred to the polar seas. At one time the climate of any 
particular locality has been hotter; at another, it has been 
colder than now. This is the natural result of the preces- 
sional movement or the equinoxes on the earth’s ecliptic, 
whereby a percentage of the sun’s rays is thrown more upon 
one pole than the other for a series of centuries together, and 
are then gradually transferred to the other pole by present¬ 
ing first one pole to the sun at perihelion, and then the other. 
The transfer of this percentage of heat from one pole to the 
other has transferred an ice-continent from one pole to the 
other and has by this addition to the earth’s solids in this or 
that locality drawn the fluid ocean after it to the extent of 
inundating whole continental areas. The ice-continent dur- 



2 6 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


ing the last glacial epoch, was probably five miles above the 
present level of the sea on the shores of Hudson’s Bay., It 
gradually thinned out toward the equator, but covered 
nearly every mountain peak of Hew England. 

As this continent of ice melted away the ocean began to 
assume its former level, while the great lakes were still pour- 
ingintothe Ohio a streamfrom one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred feet deep. The mouth of the St. Lawrence was 
still closed with ice, and a similar stream was setting south¬ 
ward through Lakes Champlain and George into the Hudson 
at Troy. While this was going on the Great Basin was be¬ 
ing deluged with sand brought down from the northern 
ranges of the Bocky Mountains, as the melting ice furnished 
power for plowing out the Colorado. 

Geologists admit that there was a period of depression 
during the glacial epoch, but look to a preceding elevation 
as the means of explaining the depth of the ice—an explana¬ 
tion quite unnecessary in the face of the aggregated snows 
of ten thousand winters. Mr. Dana says:— 

“ The height of the river-border formations above modern 
flood-level often increases to the northward.” Thus show¬ 
ing that the only extraordinary change of sea-level during 
the glacial epoch was caused by the weight of the ice-conti¬ 
nent on the pole. In all this movement of the solid through 
the fluid portion we have to observe the rigidity of the 
earth’s frame-work. The uniformity of increase of height of 
the glacial sea-border above the present levels with the in¬ 
crease of latitudes is very conspicuous, and was probably great¬ 
est near the magnetic pole. After most of the ice-continent 
had melted, and the sea had nearly resumed its level, heavy 
river-terraces were being formed in high latitudes, as, for in¬ 
stance, along the St. Lawrence. 

Time is the measure of change, and if two millions of 
years are necessary to account for the coral reefs, which 
have grown up during the Quartinary. Age, we see that there 
must have been many glacial epochs within that time. For 
the most part one glacier follows in the track of another, 
however, and thus there is an apparent continuity of effect. 


GLACIAL EPOCHS. 


2 7 


In many places, however, in local glacial centers, which are 
always in high altitudes, and where narrow gorges were filled 
hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of feet deep with ice, 
the height to which the different glaciers rose have been dis¬ 
tinctly marked on the walls of the canon by moraines of 
different altitudes. At Mineral King, in Tulare County, 
California, there is evidence that the last two glacial epochs 
were characterized by a more moderate flow of ice than the 
one preceding. 

The glacial flow which dredged the floor of the polar sea 
united with the flow deflected to the eastward by the form 
of the American Continent, doubtless formed the banks of 
Newfoundland. The theory that they are built of the sedi¬ 
ment brought down by the two great rivers of the continent, 
the Amazon and Mississippi, will doubtless be exploded by 
scientific research. 

The immense currents generated by the melting of the 
glaciers which with every rotation of the equinoctial points 
on the plane of the ecliptic, have alternated with the Arctic 
and Antarctic regions, have been the chief force in trans¬ 
porting sediment, and in conjunction with volcanic action 
are the two forces constantly employed by nature in restor¬ 
ing youth to an aged world. 

The aggregate maximum depth of all the sedimentary 
formations from the Archian to the Tertiary, is greater than 
the difference in altitude between the summits of the highest 
mountains and the bed of the deepest oceans; and still there 
is no known formation, either on land or in the sea, but what 
may be composed of matter once embodied in sedimentary 
form. Yolcanic action lifts the continents and the fluids tear 
them down. The material embodied in the American Conti¬ 
nent shows that a continent was torn down at the north. 
As a sediment-bearing current enters deep still water the 
edge of the deposit advances at an inclination or dip of 
about forty degrees, and it is the confusion and lack of con¬ 
formity in the bedding caused by this condition, doubtless, 
which has led Mr..Dana to adopt the theory of the crushing 
in and folding of strata in the groin of the continent. Fold- 


28 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH . 


ings do occur and are necessarily connected with volcanic 
upheavals. These foldings are very common among the coal- 
measures of the Bocky Mountains, on the head of the Platte 
Biver, in the heart of the continent. One objection to the 
theory that they are the result of forces acting from a great 
distance, is their local bearing. If it is the foot of the arc of 
the ocean bed crushing in the margin of the continental area, 
the mountain chains should uniformally mark parallel 
wrinkles, as it were, on the face of time. The confusion and 
trend of the different foldings in California alone, will show 
that the force was not uniformally from the ocean. 

Turning then to South America we find that the Antarctic 
ice-continent extended even nearer the equator. The mouth 
of the La Platte was blocked with ice and the valleys of the 
Parana and the Paraguay were invaded by the sea, and 
glacial drift found its way even to the tributaries of the 
Amazon. The Brazilian Mountains then constituted an 
island. Doubtless a study of the eastern hemisphere would 
help to confirm these views. Thus we see how fully all the 
knoWn facts are explained by assuming the rigid character 
of the earth’s structure. But as has already been explained, 
this assumption can only be entertained by overthrowing 
the theory of the radiation of heat. 


Caloric. 


It is proposed, then, to reopen the question of the existence 
of caloric, and to try to establish and identify the laws which 
seem to govern its action. 

As to what it is which causes the ultimate atoms of certain 
substances to repel each other, becomes and remains a mystery 
if there is no caloric to act as an agent in securing such a re¬ 
sult. But to assume the existence of caloric and a fixed ration 
of affinity of each particular substance for it, and another fixed 
ratio of affinity for every combination of substances for it, will 
seem to explain every phenomenon in chemistry, so far as the 
disengaging of heat is concerned. 

Let us state, then, what seems to be the law governing the 
action of caloric:— 

Caloric is combined in least proportion with solids. 

It is combined in greater proportion with fluids. 

It is combined in greatest proportion with gases. 

All substances assume the solid form when deprived of 
caloric. 

All solids may be converted into fluids by being combined 
with a greater proportion of caloric. 

All substances assume the gaseous form when combined in 
greatest proportion with caloric. 

When a fluid combines with any substance, which destroys 
its affinity for caloric, both substances become solids, as water 
in rock crystal. 

When a compound has a less affinity for caloric than the 
mean of the component parts, caloric is disengaged and the 
bulk is lessened; as, for instance, a pint of water and a pint of 
dry alcohol do not make a quart. The loss is represented in 
the heat disengaged. 


( 29 ) 



30 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


Combustion is the phenomenon of the combination of sev¬ 
eral substances into a compound which has less than the in¬ 
termediate affinity for caloric. The volume is thus lessened 
by the disengaging of caloric. 

Heat is the phenomenon of charging substances with more 
caloric than the ratio of prime equivalents with which they 
combine. In other words, heat is the passage of free caloric 
into every substance. 

Coldness is produced by the lack of caloric to supply the 
ratio of prime equivalents. 

All bodies are expanded in the ratio with which they com¬ 
bine with caloric. 

In the combination of oxygen and hydrogen the bulk of the 
caloric set free is, say, eighteen hundred times as great as the 
water produced. This is the means of producing the most 
intense heat known. 

Any substance which will combine "with the oxygen of 
water and liberate hydrogen will produce a temperature 
about seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit below zero. 

Metallic hydrogen when liberated from the combination 
with oxygen in the form of hydro-oxide—water—takes up 
seven thousand times its bulk of caloric. 

When the relation of ultimate atoms in solid substances is 
disturbed by mechanical means, the particles tend to surround 
themselves with caloric or to acquire a new ratio of affinity 
for that substance during the disturbance. In other words: 
Friction has a negative effect on the electric attraction of 
substances for caloric. (Probably the same may be said of 
chemical action.) 

Light seems to have the same effect as mechanical force 
and hence caloric is constantly being concentrated on the sur¬ 
face by the sun’s rays. The proof of the existence of caloric 
and its action maybe partly supplied by these facts: The evi¬ 
dence that hydrogen combines with seven thousand times its 
bulk of caloric rests partly upon the two facts, that in the form 
of gas it occupies about seven thousand times as much space as 
when combined with oxygen in the form of water; and in 
passing suddenly from its combination with oxygen it takes 


CALORIC. 


3i 


enough heat from surrounding space to produce a tempera¬ 
ture, say, seven hundred degrees below zero on Fahrenheit 
scale. 

A similar expansion of other substances produces similar 
results of temperature. 

Artificial application of heat converts all solids into fluids 
and fluids into gases. 

Heat expands all substances and in a manifold ratio when it 
converts them into gases. 

The oxidizing of carbon lessens the volume of the two 
substances combined, and thus disengages heat; but the dim¬ 
inution of the aggregate bulk of the two substances when 
united in the form of carbonic acid gas will hardly account 
for all the heat disengaged, and it must be concluded that 
the process of combustion of carbon is not fully understood. 
An investigation of this process may yet involve a searching 
inquiry into the nature of light and the effect of its combina¬ 
tions, with reference to expansion. 

The draft of a furnace and the ascension of smoke will be 
reverted to, to prove that combustion does not lessen the 
bulk. The formation of ammonia in the soot, and the oxidiz¬ 
ing of the mineral substance left in the ashes, would each 
cause the disengaging of caloric and add levity to the flame, 
whereby the carbonic acid gas, though heavier than air, 
would be lifted from the throat of the furnace. The nitrogen 
gas escaping, as the result of combustion of air, is much 
lighter than air, and the hydrogen entering into the combina¬ 
tion to form ammonia would disengage a still greater percent¬ 
age of caloric. 

We thus see that while the liberated caloric gives levity to 
the flame it only carries with it the lighter properties of the 
air and moisture consumed, aside from carbonic acid gas. 
Still one difficulty remains and that is to show the philosophy 
of the action of the fulminates and prove them consistent 
with the existence of caloric. In this case the liberation of 
the nitrogen is so sudden and experiment so dangerous that 
the source from whence the caloric comes has not been fully 
detected and observed. If our theory is correct, coldness must 


32' 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


be somewhere produced as the result of explosive action, the 
same as in rapid chemical action producing expansion. The 
heat observed may be from the reflex concussion which fol¬ 
lows and not from explosion. 


Radiation of Heat. 


The evidence of the earth’s having been a rigid mass from 
the time of the earliest sedimentary formations leads to the 
inquiry as to whether volcanoes may not be more superficial 
in their nature than is assumed by those who accept the 
theory of a melted interior. 

Thermal springs generally occur near the line of junction 
of two formations betraying different degrees of oxidation. 
Yolcanoes have a similar location, and these facts suggest the 
oxidizing process as the source and cause of volcanic action. 
If this is the source of such heat, then we should expect the 
admission of oxygen to hidden formations, by the process of 
-mining, to result in the disengaging of heat also; and as a 
rule, the further we might penetrate such formation, and the 
more completely the action of the atmosphere had been ex¬ 
cluded, the more rapid the oxidizing process might be ex¬ 
pected to be. As a fact, this rule does not hold in all cases, 
for a change informations may bring a change in the degree 
of oxidation not proportioned to depth. On the other hand, 
observation shows that the increase of heat is not always in 
that exact proportion either. 

We are entitled then to assume the debatability of the ques¬ 
tion as to whether all high temperatures in the interior of 
the earth, are, or are not, due to the caloric disengaged by 
the absorption of oxygen. If the increase of temperature is 
proportioned to the extent to which oxygen has been excluded 
from formations upon which it is now permitted to act, then 
high temperatures in mines are explained without the aid of 
heat radiated from a melted interior. The high temperature 
required for the action of certain solvents, supposed by many 
geologists to have been active in filling the fissures char- 
3 (33) 



34 


* BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 

acterized by metal-bearing veins, could not have acted among 
the gravel deposits of Colorado without producing more evi¬ 
dence of the presence of heat. The galena deposits of Wis¬ 
consin are in fissures which only extend through one or two 
horizontal formations and contain no evidence of the action 
of heat. If heat was not an essential agent in the formation 
of mineral veins, then there is no longer necessity for assum¬ 
ing a former high temperature, or that the life of the earth 
is gradually oozing away into vacancy. 

It is at war with every idea of Omnipotence to assume that 
intense fusion was the necessary concomitant of a beginning, 
or that the grandest triumphs of creative energy must grad¬ 
ually jneld to the devouring effects of unoccupied and fathom¬ 
less space. The theory of the radiation of heat into space 
fails to explain the origin of this agent of a beginning or the 
possibility of its departure. Sir Humphrey Davy must have 
stood appalled at the magnitude of his discovery w T hen he saw 
that the rubbing of two pieces of ice together demon¬ 
strated the certainty of the ultimate overthrow of the uni¬ 
verse, by this eternal loss of heat aud death of matter. On 
the contrary, there are positive evidences of the stability of 
the universe and a rigid structure of the earth. 

The diagonal strain to which the frame-work of the earth 
is subjected by the location of the principal mountain 
chains not only surpasses that of the tides a thousand-fold, 
and thereby proves that the earth is not fluid, but the 
weighting down of the two hemispheres at equal dis¬ 
tances from the pole, and on opposite sides of the earth, 
causes that precessional movement of the equinoctial points 
•upon the plane of the ecliptic, which gives rise to annual 
motion and seasons. A top which has a small piece of 
lead attached to one side, will, when in motion, serve 
to illustrate the manner in which the mountains of Asia 
and South America swing the poles of the earth around the 
poles of the heavens. This vibrating tendency has doubtless 
been modified by the wearing down of mountain chains; and 
by examining into the source from which came the matter 
which was employed by nature in continent building, it is not 


RADIATION OF HEAT\ 


35 


impossible that we shall discover that at one time there was 
a sufficient vibration of the poles of the earth to bring the 
polar circles within the tropics. 

It is to a shoaling of the Atlantic, however, that we must 
look for the cause of that change of climate in the Arctic 
Ocean, which now precludes the possibility of a vegetable life 
such as characterized the period of the formation of the 
coal-measures. 

It is quite unnecessary to explain the manner in which the 
heat of the tropics gives rise to oceanic currents. By plac¬ 
ing a pot of water before the fire a current will soon be ob¬ 
served to strike across the center of the pot to the outer 
margin. When the Atlantic was connected with the polar 
sea by a line of deep water, this warm current reaching the 
Arctic Ocean must have received a rotary motion to the east 
in consequence of the motion of a thousand miles an hour, 
which the earth (and sea) have at the equator. Thusalarge 
body of warm water entering the Arctic Ocean would rush 
past the island of Nova Zembla with great velocity, and en¬ 
circling the pole would gradually become cool and sink be¬ 
neath the warm current and return again to the equator. 
This warm current on the margin of the frozen ocean would 
modify the climate of the adjacent land (for its great east¬ 
ern motion would cause it to everywhere incline to the pe¬ 
riphery of the circle, as this motion came more directly in line 
with the bearing of centrifugal force). 

Since the deposit of the banks of Newfoundland in the 
trough of the Atlantic, the warm current, after striking the 
west coast of Europe, has mainly returned to the equator. 
Thus, while its modifying influence is scarcely felt in arctic 
regions, it serves to intensify the heat in equatorial latitudes. 
There is no evidence of a former high temperature in the 
tropical regions; and it is not till we retire from forty to sev¬ 
enty degrees from the equator that we begin to discover that 
the flora of those regions was once more tropical in its 
nature. 

Thus, there is only about one-third of the earth’s surface 
which presents the evidence of having once possessed a 


36 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


warmer climate. Nor can it be shown that increase of tem¬ 
perature was not compensated for, as already shown probable, 
by a lower temperature at the equator. "Until the reverse 
is proved, it is safe to assume that the mean temperature of 
the whole earth was always the same. If there is a wasting 
away of any property in the universe—no matter whether it 
is substance, light, heat, motion, cause or effect,—let us dem¬ 
onstrate that fact first, and then inquire into the direction 
of escape. That the climate which produced the vegetation 
of the coal-measure of the latitudes of 70° and 80°, was 
about the same in average temperature as that of Central 
Europe and the northern States of the United States is to-day, 
cannot be doubted or denied; and nearly the same condition 
seems to have extended throughout the whole earth. Mild¬ 
ness and humidity were the characteristics; and leading 
geologists admit that nearly the same type of vegetation ex¬ 
tended throughout all latitudes. That this condition of climate 
may have extended first to one pole for a period of ten thou¬ 
sand years, and then have gradually swung to the other pole, 
as we have already seen, in consequence of the polar circles 
being brought within the tropics by the weight of two mount¬ 
ain ranges situated on the reverse side of the two poles, which, 
since then, have undoubtedly been torn down by the action of 
the elements, is very probable. 

It is difficult to identify the exact period of two formations 
as being the same, for coal and lignites were being formed 
during many ages; and it is a matter of serious question as 
to whether the plumbagenous and carboniferous rocks are 
not what now remains of a system of coal-measures anterior 
to all of these. Lack of all these is the question as to 
whether many veins of iron ore do not occupy fissures in 
which vegetable matter was once embedded. 

Lawson and Logan assert that there is no exaggeration to 
maintain that there is as much carbon in the Laurencian 
rocks as there is in equal areas of the (so-called) carbonifer¬ 
ous formations. 

No geologist will deny, at the present time, but what the 
amount of carbon in rocks of that age is enormous. The 


RADI A TION OF HE A T. 


37 


term carboniferous can be applied to zones much better than 
to eras; but without the Carboniferous Era the igneous theory 
would be illy sustained. 

There is one fact tending to show that the heat resulting 
from the sun’s rays is caloric disengaged by the action* of 
light, which we have not yet noticed, and that is this:— 

Light and heat are both concentrated in the focus of a 
lense; but while heat is readily passed through opaque sub¬ 
stances, we hear very little of the refraction of the rays of 
heat through opaque lenses. 


The Earth Under the Spectroscope. 


Becent discoveries, made through the medium of the spec¬ 
troscope, have seemed to lend force to the igneous theory, 
and have presented questions very difficult of solution. 

As is well known, the spectroscope refracts all the rays of 
light passing through it; and each of the different colors are 
refracted at different angles. On leaving the spectroscope, 
the different rays are thus spread out like a fan. Every 
substance which glows with fusion, emits rays of light which 
are refracted at a different angle from the rays emitted by 
any other substances. In some substances, however, the 
difference in angle is so very minute that the difference of 
the two rays can only be determined with certainty by ex¬ 
amining the character of border lines which segregate the 
different rays. 

As showing the difficulties of the problem thus presented, 
we may notice that it has recently been claimed that what 
were regarded as the iron lines in the refracted light of the 
sun’s rays present a different border from the lines of light 
refracted from melted iron. 

Without any purpose of antagonizing, however, any of 
the facts apparently established by the spectroscope, it is our 
present purpose to inquire how far they sustain the igneous 
theory. 

The earth is the sounding line, by which we fathom the 
depths and the mysteries of the universe. In contemplating 
the stellar heavens we can conceive of no substance, no force, 
no condition, which has not its representative in the earth 
and its surroundings. By this test we must analyze the 
mysteries of the spectroscope. Does it follow then that the 
spectroscope shows the sun to be a great globe in a state of 
fusion? 


( 38 ) 



EARTH UNDER THE SPECTROSCOPE. 39 

In answering this question let us have recourse to a few 
suppositions, rather extravagant in their nature, but still 
supposable. 

Let us suppose that the wave theory, in regard to the 
transmission of ra} T s of light, is philosophically correct. 

Let us suppose that an ordinary thunder-storm spread 
over a whole hemisphere at one time, and that this hemis¬ 
phere was the side opposite the sun. Let us suppose that 
flashes of lightning, ordinarily vivid, spread through the 
whole breadth of the storm, and followed each other with 
that rapidity of succession which characterize the vibrations 
of the waves of light. This condition need not disturb the 
slumber or snores of the ordinary granger; and yet to the 
causal observer, from other spheres, the earth would appear 
as another sun. The waves of electric light being suflicientlv 
near each other to fill the eye, would appear continuous. 

Now let us go a step further with these suppositions. Let 
us suppose that half the weight of the earth’s atmosphere 
was h} T drogen gas, which, from its rare levity, floated upon 
the more ponderous substratum of common air; and that 
with it floated cosmical vapors which contained all the ele¬ 
mentary substances. 

Let us suppose that some meteoric disturbance caused the 
thunder-storm, by breaking the smooth surface of the aerial 
stratum, thus facilitating the oxidizing of the hydrogen, by 
withdrawing oxygen from -the air. The electric currents 
thus engendered would be brought in direct contact with 
cosmical vapors and would fase them, and thus present 
their lines and angles to the spectroscope. 

Without assuming that that condition is ever approximated 
by the earth’s atmosphere, it is presented as being not en¬ 
tirely incompatible with life on the earth; and as being en¬ 
tirely independent of the theory of high temperature of the 
earth; and as explaining most of the phenomena of the sun’s 
rays. 

A few years since, the Scientific American , in represent¬ 
ing the phenomena observed during a total eclipse, presented 
cuts illustrating a maelstrom of flame making its swoop 


40 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH . 


across the disc of the sun with that inconceivable velocity, 
comparable only to the electric glare. 

It cannot be claimed that the character of the sun’s rays 
are so fully understood, as to offer no field for original re¬ 
search. Flames sweeping back and forth thousands of miles 
in a few seconds, do not speak of a state of combustion with 
which the inhabitants of this earth are familiar, except it is 
from the action of electricity; and if it is, then beneath that 
pyrotechnic display, there may be an orb possessed of a 
moist and seasonable climate. The theory that the body of 
the orb is in a state of combustion cannot be sustained in 
view of the fact that dark spots are frequently seen to move 
about over the sun’s disc. 

During the fall of 1884 a phenomenally red light was seen 
to appear during twilight for several months together. As to 
what revelations the spectroscope may have made respecting 
the character of this light is not known at this writing. Most 
probably it was the vapor of a comet absorbed by the earth’s 
atmosphere; and as its most lurid part would be at a point 
where the sun’s rays passed horizontally through it, it follows 
that the densest portion of the vapor must have been eight¬ 
een or twenty miles above the earth and extending upward, 
perhaps fifty miles. If this theory is correct, then this light, 
when viewed from the moon, would have given the earth the 
appearance of being surrounded by a ring. 

In 1852 or 1853 the author wrote an article on comets, 
which was published in the Boston Investigator at the time, 
in which he took occasion to predict the phenomenon here 
referred too. 

While comets obey the laws of gravitation, they, neverthe¬ 
less, evince such a lack of ponderosity that the barometer 
could not be relied on to determine the presence of the va¬ 
pors of one by the increased weight of the earth’s atmosphere. 


The Atomic Theory. 


The atomic theory, when regarded as a philososphical 
mode of explaining the indestructibility of matter is an aux¬ 
iliary to science. But when looked to as a means of estab¬ 
lishing the infinitesimal character of ultimate atoms, in 
contradistinction to the idea that by chemical solution ulti¬ 
mate atoms themselves are thoroughly saturated by the 
properties of their affinities, then there are reasons for be¬ 
lieving the theory a delusion and a snare. 

It is claimed that two substances in which the shape of 
the atoms differ, may be made to occupy a smaller bulk by 
being mingled—the smaller atoms going to fill the interstices, 
between the larger ones. If this is all that takes place in 
mingling water and alcohol, from whence comes the heat 
disengaged; and if that is the phenomena of mixing hydro¬ 
gen gas and oxygen gas, how comes it that the combined 
result is several thousand times less then either of the gases. 

It is not the purpose of this work, however, to deal any 
further with the atomic theory, than to merely brush away 
the rubbish which obscures the understanding of the forces 
employed by nature in the formation of metal-bearing veins. 
Therefore, as introductory to that subject, it is proposed to 
present the proposition here, that all atoms in chemical com¬ 
binations are saturated with their affinities; and that caloric 
forms the bulk of all gases, and a percentage of all fluids 
and of all solids near the surface of the earth. 

(4i) 



Fossils in California. 


The vertical position of most of the strata of the Pacific 
Coast is what has been relied on to establish the theory of 
the crushing together of the earth’s crust. The theory is, 
that lateral pressure has given to certain rocks a schistose 
structure independent of stratification, and that the cleavage 
in this case would be at right angles with the line of pres¬ 
sure. Now, if it can be shown that these vertical formations 
contain fossils, and that these fossils are all in a vertical posi¬ 
tion also, then there will be a new difficulty in the way of 
the crushing-in theory. It may be said that if the author 
denies that the slates were formed on their edge, he should 
show how they were lifted to their present position. It 
would be worse than folly, however, to cling to a known fal¬ 
lacy because the truth had not been revealed. 

In the mining district of Mineral King, in Tulare County, 
California, the author had the good fortune to have pointed 
out to him a formation of calcareous slate, full of fossils, and 
like nearly all the formations of that district, reposing di¬ 
rectly on its edge with fossils in like position. The shells 
w~ere probably of a species of brachiopod. There was also 
the cast of the track of a worm having some resemblance to 
tracks observable in the Clinton sandstone. The fossils are 
probably referable to the Lower Silurian. Their position 
shows that the rock has been upturned; but it requires a very 
critical examination to determine which was the under side 
at the time of bedding. The various formations of the dis¬ 
trict are very nearly vertical as a rule; but most of the for¬ 
mations are sprung at the top towards the nearest canon, or 
in the direction of the softest and most perishable formation. 
This tendency has doubtless given an overhanging position to 

(42) 



FOSSILS IN CALIFORNIA . 


43 


syenite; which forms the western wall of the district. At a 
depth of two thousand feet it is believed that the dip will be 
under the metamorphic rock at an angle of seventy degrees. 
A careful examination of the district revealed the fact that at 
one point east of Farewell Gap, on the summit of the Greenhorn 
branch of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, there is a small sec¬ 
tion where the dip ol' the strata is at an angle of forty degrees 
to the east; at which point it is in non-conformity to the 
syenitic gneiss of the eastern wall. 

West of the fossil-bearing calcareous slate there is about one 
mile in width, or more properly, in the thickness of stratified 
rocks. One of these is a stratum of black slate very highly 
charged with carbon. Near the western margin is a dyke of 
crystalline lime or marble about two hundred feet wide, and 
traceable for four or five miles. It is believed, however, that 
this latter formation does not penetrate to a greater depth than 
from one thousand to two thousand feet. After what has been 
said, it will be assumed that the dip is to the east; and that the 
non-fossil-bearing strata along the western margin of the dis¬ 
trict are underlying and oldest. There is, therefore, the best 
of reasons for expecting that research will class some of the 
formations of this district as among the oldest of the sedi¬ 
mentary formations. 

It would be beyond the scope and purpose of this work to 
dwell elaborately upon volcanic action, except so far as it re¬ 
lates to the question of a rigid earth; and, therefore, a hasty 
glance at the granite formations of that region is all that 
will be given. 

If we should restore to the western slope of the Sierra 
Nevada Mountains, between latitudes 36° and 38°, the mat¬ 
ter evidently carried away by the action of water, and 
readily traceable to the Tulare Yalley, we should have a 
series of parallel syenite ridges bearing about twenty-four 
degrees west of north, and separated by depressions filled 
with metamorphic rock reposing on its edge; and bearing no¬ 
evidence of folding, except where disturbed by some force 
acting at right angles with the trend of the mountains. In 
several places, both granite and basalt in a melted form have 


44 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


been erupted through these slaty formations, and have spread 
in perfect non-conformity over the broken out-crop of the 
slate. In one of these slate formations, near the southern 
line of Fresno County, a compact deposit of water-worn peb¬ 
bles is traceable for several miles. The pebbles, like the fos¬ 
sils of Mineral King, repose on their edges. They are com¬ 
posed of quartz, mica-slate, greenstone, granite, etc., etc., and 
are embedded in a slaty formation equally as compact as the 
other metamorphic rocks of the district under consideration. 
There are no fossils, and there is no reason for supposing that 
the matrix is other than azoic in age. The mica-slate peb¬ 
bles in this formation are in no way different from rocks asso¬ 
ciated with the matrix. Some of these pebbles are some¬ 
what metamorphosed, and some merge into the matrix. 
Some, perhaps a large portion, may have been somewhat flat¬ 
tened by lateral pressure, but many, particularly from mica- 
slate, retain their original form, and their position shows 
that the stratification was horizontal at the time of bedding. 
This gravel carries gold water-worn. 

One of the places where erupted granite lays in non-con¬ 
formity over broken slate, is west of Deer Canon, in Mineral 
King Mining District. The author had the pleasure of point¬ 
ing it out to Captain J. W. A. Wright, who made a careful 
examination and sent specimens to Professor Jackson of the 
University of California. The latter gentleman pronounced 
it “biotite granite.” The rock is mainly white feldspar. 

A casual glance taken thirty years ago, without reference 
to geological research, left the impression on the mind of the 
author, that there were bowlders embedded in the slate in the 
bed of Hangtown Creek, below the city of Placerville, 
Eldorado County, California. These slates may be^of a more 
recent era, however, as Professor Whitney has found some of 
the slates of the placer mines to be of the Jaurasic and 
TriassicAge. Below or west of most of the formations no¬ 
ticed in the foregoing, there are a number of slate, granite, 
and diorite ridges having a bearing to the northeast. They 
may be more recent than any of the rocks of the same re¬ 
gion just described; but let their age be what it may, they 


FOSSILS IN CALIFORNIA . 


45 

show that the crushing-in process has ceased in this latitude, 
if it ever had a beginning. 

Probably most of the formations of California will never 
reveal fossils. There is a formation at Columbia, in 
Tuolumne County, which, so far as explorations of miners 
have gone, seems to be in non-conformhy to the granular 
limestone of that region, and to possibly rest upon it. The 
formation is always in disorder and in decomposition at the 
point of contact. This latter formation is a soft talcose slate, 
highly ferruginous. It is probably of the Triassic Age, but 
has never yielded fossils. It has the vertical position of most 
of the California slates, and trend also; but then there is no 
question but that the carbonate of lime has complete con¬ 
formity to all the older slates of the region. 


Trends and Reliefs. 


The mania for systematizing in science can be well illus¬ 
trated by what is laid dowm as a system of trends and re¬ 
liefs in the bearing of the island groups and mountain chains of 
the world. Some geologists have gone so far as to show that 
the mien of the general trend of the leading island groups is 
about 52° west of north. Now let us suppose that a line 
should be extended with that bearing. A spiral line would 
be described which would encircle the pole and approach it 
very rapidly during the first few revolutions but never reach 
it. A line continued in accordance with this cork-screw 
mode of reasoning could never be carried around the earth. 
If the reader will take an artificial globe and lay a thread on 
the imaginary line dividing the continental and oceanic 
hemispheres, it will be found, that in going directly around 
the globe, it at one point turns due east, at another due west, 
and that its relation to the pole changes at every point. A 
system which accepts Europe as a part of an ocean, so far as 
Africa is concerned, in order to make the mountain system 
of the latter harmonize with the supposed relation of the 
high mountain ranges and broad oceans of the world, .should 
be able to harmonize anything. The same facile reasoning 
would have the low range of the Altai Mountains, in central 
Asia to represent the broad expanse of the frozen ocean, and 
all for the simple reason that there are no mountains or even 
high table-lands in Northern Asia, and without borrowing a 
mountain range to order, the rule would be at fault. 

Turning to the eastern shore of South America, we find the 
coast bending to the west just south of the equator, and pur¬ 
suing a general southwest course thence to the region of 
Cape Horn. Looking from this coast directly seaward we 

(46) 



TRENDS AND RELIEFS. 


4 7 


find that we pass to the south of the Cape of Good Hope and 
that the first land we encounter is the continent of Australia. 
According to the rule then, the highest mountains of the 
world should stand on the eastern shore of South America 
near the Tropic of Capricorn. The truth is that the mount¬ 
ains of Brazil are scarcely worthy of the name of mountain, 
when taken in connection with the great scheme of world 
making. 

If we reckon as mountain the number of cubic feet which 
stand elevated above the level of the sea, we shall find that 
the bulk of North America faces the frozen ocean. The 
table-lands all rise toward the north, all the great rivers rise 
there and its highest mountains are near the Arctic Circle. 

An arbitrary rule has thus been laid down in regard to the 
configuration of continents which cannot be properly applied 
to either Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, or South Amer¬ 
ica; while Australia is but an island anyhow, facing all the 
larger oceans and at the same time probably being no more 
remarkable for its high coast borders, than the island of New 
Guinea. Let the reader contrast Europe with Australia and 
remember that in order to apply this theory Europe is not 
only reckoned a part of the sea, but the South Pacific, as far 
out as New Zealand on the one side, and New Guinea on the 
other, is reckoned a part of the Australian continental area. 
We thus have a continent taken to give contour to the sea 
and a sea taken to give contour to a continent. 

Under the head of “ Continent-Making” we have examined 
into the observed phenomena, keeping steadily in view the 
great fact that this theory of trends and reliefs confessedly 
fails to give any hint of an explanation why the continents 
should all be grouped in one hemisphere; or to explain how 
such a fact could be reconciled with the theory of a fluid 
earth. 


Formation of Oxides 


We have seen how unsafe it is for the miner to follow arbi¬ 
trary rules which were evidently laid down for no other pur¬ 
pose than rounding off a (so-called) science. 

The interior of the earth is cold, compact, and rigid; rich 
ore bodies are never more than one mile below the surface, 
and successful mining never attains that depth. Steam 
does not form in the melted interior for these reasons:— 
A column of lava, seventeen miles high, of a specific 
gravity of three times the weight of water, has a hydro¬ 
static pressure which would reduce steam to the specific 
gravity of water; and it is at this point that the expan¬ 
sive power of steam begins. Further, it is not claimed by 
the most sanguine that the melted interior can be reached 
at any such depth. But even though water did completely 
saturate the whole interior of the earth, and fill every in¬ 
terstice, and meet melted matter; with this pressure it would 
endure a white heat below that point as quietly as gold or 
platinum. Therefore, some new agent must be found for 
any disturbance below a depth of seventeen miles. There 
is no expansion of steam below that point, for the prime 
constituents of water are forced into the fluid state by pres¬ 
sure. Compression evolves caloric and expansion absorbs 
it. Since this pressure has overcome the attractions of 
caloric for the gases, we may assume it has for the solids 
and fluids also; and that all substances are solids at that 
depth with no caloric and no cavity between atoms. 

The material of the earth’s surface is, by weight, about 
half oxygen; it follows that within the first fifteen miles 
of the surface the weight of the oxygen present must be 
equal to the pressure of from three thousand to five thou- 
(48) 



FORMATION OF OXIDES. 


49 


sand atmospheres, besides that represented in water; and 
water is eight-ninths oxygen. 

Properties charged with oxygen in different ratios would 
become positive and negative to each other, and would 
generate currents of electricity which would circulate back 
and forth between the two formations. 

Now, as we have seen, the great forces at work in the 
tearing down and building up of continents have an axial 
bearing nearly parallel with the poles of the earth. The 
oxidixing process comes with the solidifying of formations, 
while the deoxidizing process is the result of tearing down. 

The mingling of properties results in new combinations, 
in prime equivalent ratios, in which oxygen and carbon are 
disengaged. Thus: if a sulphate be brought in contact with 
sea-salt there will, in most cases, be a chemical action and 
a new arrangement of prime equivalents. This is likely, 
in many cases, to liberate the oxygen. But when the new 
arrangement calls for more oxygen, then it must be drawn 
from the atmoshere or ocean by the slow process of ages. 

Carbonate of lime has a chemical action on silex which 
is seldom taken into account, but the importance of which, 
from the standpoint of practical mining, can hardly be over¬ 
rated. 

In the placer mines of Tuolumne County, California, there 
once stood a city called Columbia. Politicians were accus¬ 
tomed, in addressing the miners of that locality, to speak of 
this little city as the “The Gem of the Southern Mines.” 
The region for some distance in every direction is of a car¬ 
bonate of lime formation, through which no gold-bearing 
quartz runs; and all the gold found was in washed gravel, 
underlying, in many cases, a cretaceous formation of the 
Miocene Age. Yet, within a radius of three miles of this 
place, one-sixth of the placer gold of California was dug. It 
was not an uncommon thing to dig out an oak stump or a 
pine log, of varieties of timber growing in California to¬ 
day, and which had been lodged on auriferous gravels, and 
buried beneath fifty feet of sediment. Where the gold 
found in this formation came from is a mining problem which 
4 


So 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


remains unsolved; and efforts of the scientific to point out 
the source from whence it came have only prompted the 
miner to disastrous experiments. The Stanislaus River has 
plowed out its channel since the date of this deposit, and 
now courses between granite bluffs thirteen hundred feet be¬ 
low the level of the bed of the stream which brought Co- 
umbia her gold. The drainage caused by this cutting down 
through this lime formation resulted in several calcareous 
springs on the bluffs of this river known as Gold Springs. 
Jjarge bodies of travertine have been deposited by these 
springs, overhanging the bluff, as it were, and extending 
nearly to the present level of the river. And now, as show¬ 
ing the age of this placer gravel, it may be stated that this 
travertine, mainly deposited since the river had nearly 
reached its presnt level, has been found to overlie many of 
the bones of the mammoth (mastadon max&mus), and that in 
the “bed rock,” where these bones were found, are impressed 
numerous Indian “windmills,” as the miners call them; being 
nothing more or less than mortars where the Indian women 
ground their food. Two facts are thus presented. One is 
that the Indian with his present habits was contemporaneous 
with the mastodon. Another is that far beyond that, in the 
deep obscurity of past ages, California had a different sys¬ 
tem of rivers from what she has now; and that, even then, 
her climate was almost identical with her climate of to-day. 
It remains to be stated, however, as a fact pertinent to the 
inquiry, as to the effect such commingling of material may 
have on the oxidizing process, that they were very great. 
At the point of contact of lime and gravel there had been a 
mutual decomposition giving rise to “green clay,” the tough¬ 
ness of which was proverbial. It was a common saying 
among the miners, that “that clay would roll to Stockton 
without washing.” Thus the evidence of the departure of 
silex was here very marked, while further up, among the 
gravel, every vestige of vegetable matter was silicified. 

The writer is more particular in describing this locality 
for the two reasons that he mined there for many years, and 
the country is now little else than a naked mass of lime-rock. 


FORMATION OF OXIDES. 


5i 

Other evidence might be adduced to show the action of 
carbonate of lime on silex. On the South Fork of the 
Ixaweah, in Tulare County, California, granite bowlders may 
be found reposing against carbonate of lime with the under¬ 
side, or the part resting against the lime-rock, eaten away 
like an old log on moist ground. 

These facts lead us to the consideration of the question 
as to how much carbonate of lime had to do with relieving 
the gold dug at Columbia of tbe quartz with which it may 
be supposed to have been associated; and further, how 
much it may have had to do in decomposing the silex in the 
fissure where the gold was first deposited; or how much it 
may have had to do with preventing the deposit of that pro¬ 
portion of silex which usually forms the matrix of a gold- 
bearing lead. 

The examination of the relation of the Columbia marbles 
to the gold-bearing matrix will, therefore, come up when we 
come to consider the law governing the formation of ore 
bodies. 

The acting and reacting of the silicates and other sub¬ 
stances, in this Columbia gravel deposit, upon the compli¬ 
cated system of fractures and cross-fractures in the marble, 
had wrought it into the most fantastic shapes, reaching some¬ 
times to a depth of fifty or one hundred feet. Sometimes a 
large mass of the lime would be found reposing entirely on 
clay, and several inches of clay would have to be removed 
before the subjacent rock was reached on which it rested at 
the time the gravel was deposited. This last condition was 
very frequent when the disturbing forces had carried away 
the Miocene sediment and permitted surface moisture to 
penetrate. The clay and marble were always divided by a 
dry, meal-like coating, near a quarter of an inch thick, 
which would cause the clay to drop from the face of th e 
bowlder (for such these masses of lime were called by the 
miners) like the discharging of a dead weight so soon as 
pressure was removed. This coating was from decompositon 
of carbonate of lime. 

In treating of fossils in California, mention has been made 


52 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


of another formation met with at Columbia; and one which 
seems to be in non-conformity to the lime, and to, perhaps, 
rest upon it. As has been stated, this formation is a ferru¬ 
ginous slate. In sinking down through this slate there are 
many instances where the lime bowlders have been struck 
and all wrought into the same fantastic shapes for fifteen or 
twenty feet down that has been described in connection 
with the placer gravel. These explorations have all been in¬ 
cidental, however, and have been conducted near the edge of 
the slate, and cannot be certainly relied on in determining 
the age of the formation; but their decomposition at the 
point of contact reveals the force of the oxidizing process. 

These slate hills stand from fifty to three hundred feet 
above the adjacent lime, and it is a significant coincidence 
that the bowlders struck beneath the slate have corres¬ 
ponded with those of the surrounding level. It seems to 
hint at the idea that two or three hundred feet in depth of 
a gold-bearing slate of very soft texture had been wasted 
away by streams which probably met the ocean at a higher 
level. 

If our geological survey had determined what the miners 
have here left in doubt, instead of bestowing so much untir¬ 
ing patience upon the wonders of the insect world, it would 
have come nearer meeting the expectations of a rude but 
practical people. 

The vertical position of this slate seems fatal to the theory, 
however, of its being more recent than the system of Califor¬ 
nia slates. It may be that the decomposition of the slate in 
contact with the lime, acting in conjunction with the tend¬ 
ency of all formations to sag toward the side receiving least 
lateral pressure or support, had permitted the slate to overlap 
the lime. 

One fact might have been noticed a thousand times by any 
observing miner; and that was the gold dug at the point of 
contact between these two formations was less water-worn 
than that dug amongst the lime “ bowlders.” Further than 
this, there were many of the richest and most noted “ pock¬ 
ets ” found in this proximity. This fact will assume impor- 


FORMATION OF OXIDES. 


53 

tance if we adopt the theory which will be presented further 
on respecting the formation of ore bodies. 

Mr. Overman in his treatise on the reduction of silver ores, 
lays down the proposition that a paying silver lode is never 
found between two lime walls, but that when one ,of the 
walls is granite galena will always pay for the silver it con¬ 
tains. This, if correct, would lead irresistibly to the conclu¬ 
sion that it was the walls and not an eruptive force which 
gave rise to ore bodies. 

Lime, though not remarkable for carrying large deposits 
of the precious metals, may be found to enter largely into 
the composition of one of the walls of many gold and silver¬ 
bearing leads. It is one of the constituents of the eastern 
wall of the Comstock. The dioritic porphyry of that forma¬ 
tion being largely composed of hornblende. 

In the silver mines of Colorado the presence of lime in 
one of the walls is generally looked upon by the miners as a 
prerequisite of a good mine; and this rule will apply to most 
of the silver mines of the State of Nevada outside of the 
Comstock. In view of these facts the presence of a lime 
formation at Columbia, where such a percentage of the 
placer gold of California was found, is suggestive. 

In turning northward from this point, we find that a similar 
lime formation appears at Murphy’s, in Calaveras County; at 
Volcanoe, in Amador County; at Indian Diggings, in El Dor¬ 
ado County; and that it reappears at Darlington’s Ranch, 
three miles south of Placerville. Within five miles of the 
line thus indicated more than half of the placer gold of Cali¬ 
fornia was dug. Such facts as these should not be overlooked 
by those anxious to inquire as to whether the Mother Lode 
may or may not have given configuration to the western 
landscape of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This lime fol¬ 
lows the central trend of the great placer gold deposit of 
California, while the Mother Lode is below or west of it and 
parallel with it, and too.far down the western slope to have 
supplied any great percentage of the gold in question. 

This mineral, so frequently met with in mining regions, 
carries only one-half as much oxygen in proportion to the 


54 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


weight of other substances as granite. This fact should not 
be overlooked by the scientific, in view of the circumstances 
of its occurrence. Oxygen, doubtless has much to do with 
all deposits of mineral. It is only those metals which have 
least affinity for oxygen that are usually found native. Sil¬ 
ver, it is true, is often found in the form of a sulphide, owing 
to the strong affinity of the two substances; but any prop¬ 
erty capable of taking the sulphur from silver will reduce 
the latter to the metallic state. The combination of silver 
with oxygen is with such a slight and precarious affinity 
that its fulminates are the most destructive explosives known. 
Thus far, in considering the oxidizing process, the proposi¬ 
tion has been accepted that water is incompressible* No 
satisfactory experiments have been made leading to the 
reverse conclusion. The experiments of Perkins did nothing 
more, at the furthest, than to show the elasticity of cast iron. 
But while we accept the proposition, we must not overlook 
the fact, that in the form of solids, the properties composing 
water are found in much smaller compass. A cubic foot of 
granite contains about ninety-five pounds of oxygen, while a 
cubic foot of water only contains about fifty-six pounds. 
And yet the water is eight-ninths oxygen, while the mineral 
substances which hold the oxygen in combination in the 
cubic foot of granite, weigh more than the cubic foot of 
water. 

It is very difficult to see how this shrinkage of oxygen, in 
combining with solids, can be accounted for on any other 
theory than that something escapes. As a fact we know 
that heat does escape. We submit that the facts are not 
explained by the atomic theory; and are consistent only 
with the supposition that there is such a substance as caloric. 

Now as a deoxidized formation takes up oxygen to give 
it the oxidized condition of granite, this caloric must escape 
no matter whether the oxygen be drawn from atmosphere 
or sea, except that in accordance with the theory herein laid 
down, the percentage of caloric in the air is many times the 
greatest. This caloric would manifest itself at the point 
where the oxidizing process was advancing, or on a line- 


FORMA TION OF OXIDES. 


55 


between the oxidized and deoxidized formations. The oxy¬ 
gen entering the deoxidized formation would add more 
than one-half the bulk to the granite: and if the process* 
continued to the depth of fifteen miles it would expand the 
formation sufficiently to lift the deepest bed of the ocean te 
the top of the highest mountain. A line of eruptive force 
like this would disturb and distort the metamorphic and 
unaltered rocks; and if two parallel upheavals of this kind 
Occurred close together, they would leave the slate in a 
folded and vertical position in the valley betweenf the two 
up-lifting forces; while the line of action would round off 
two granite ridges. One after another the granite ridges 
might all be formed in detail, in this manner, but could 
hardly be accounted for by the crushing in of the groin of 
the continent; for in the latter case the mountain ridges 
should represent nothing but the deepest formations of sedi¬ 
mentary rock. 

We know as a fact that there is no expansion of gases 
among the hypogene rocks, and that it is only in those 
which have been erupted and have cooled near the surface 
that this phenomenon is presented. 

This feature of a higher concentration of oxygen than 
that met with in the form of water, is one deserving the 
closest attention; for it suggests the important question as 
to whether water may not be decomposed by pressure. The 
levity of water, as compared to the other oxides is not due 
to the hydrogen present, for this reason; that, a study of the 
hj'drates teaches us that hydrogen itself may become con¬ 
centrated till the hydrogen present may add more than the 
specific gravity of water to the combination. Nor can any 
considerable portion of the apparent specific gravity of oxy¬ 
gen in other combinations be explained away by the extra¬ 
ordinary ponderosity of the substances with which it com¬ 
bines. In granite, the most important simple substance 
present, after oxygen, is aluminum, of which the specific 
gravity is about that of chalk. 

From four ounces of nitrate of potash Ingenhousz is said 
to have obtained 3,000 cubic inches of oxygen gas. This ga& 


56 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


would weigh more than four cubic inches of water. The 
nitrogen gas present would weigh as much as one and a half 
cubic inches of water. This is almost incredible, however, 
since it does not leave the ratio of prime equivalent for the 
potash. The nitrate of potash was fused with a little quick 
lime, and a part of the ox}*gen may have come from that 
source. But while there is room for some error in the matter 
of the lime, it must be remembered that there was not four 
cubic inches of the salt analyzed. Of this about forty-six 
per cent by weight was potash and twelve per cent water. 
The water of course, was eight-ninths oxygen. 

Examine the question as we may we shall find that oxygen 
is held in greater capacity by many other substances than by 
hydrogen. It may be the staple element in giving stability 
to the earth’s frame-work. So far as we know, its combina¬ 
tions and affinities are only disturbed near the surface. 
Light changes its combinations in many instances, while the 
tearing down and building up of continents brings new com¬ 
binations and new affinities. We have seen that the incom¬ 
pressibility of water is not due to the fact, as is supposed, 
that the hydrogen fills the intervals between ultimate atoms 
of oxygen; and that the space occupied by either substance 
will be lessened by the strength of affinity with which it 
combines with other substances. If the strength of affinity 
can be overcome by pressure, then a fluctuation of pressure 
resulting from the transfer of an ice-continent from one pole 
to the other would cause a fluctuation in the line of requisite 
pressure. Hydrogen and heat would be disengaged. That is 
to say that according to our theory the hydrogen and latent 
caloric pressed out would equal the shrinkage. The passage 
of these released elements through the earth’s crust would 
be likely to create rents and fissures in consequence of the 
difference in the expansive force of caloric on different ma¬ 
terials, and the tendency of hydrogen again to take up oxy¬ 
gen as soon as the diminished pressure permitted. This 
oxidizing of the liberated hydrogen and the attendant com¬ 
bustion would result in earthquake shocks; and the escaping 
vapors would be precipitated in the form of rain. If, how- 


FORMATION OF OXIDES . 


57 


ever, any great amount of hydrogen gas escaped without 
undergoing combustion, the great amount of caloric it would 
absorb in its immense expansive force would be likely to chill 
everything with which it came in contact, and we might 
expect “volcanic bombs” and even bodies of ice to be ejected 
from the midst of melted lava. 

It may be asked, if this theory is correct, that water is 
dissolved by pressure, and pressure is a principal agent in 
the production of granite, bow comes the granite on the 
surface? To this we might answer that all the accepted 
theories claim that granite originates deep in the earth, and 
the subject of the means by which it is uncovered has been 
enlarged on by many writers. 

If the theory is correct that ultimate atoms saturate each 
other, then it is clear that the only resisting force which 
water could offer to pressure, would be the strength of affin¬ 
ity of the different properties for each other.- When this 
exact point was reached, the scale would turn. The expan¬ 
sion of the rock which would be occasioned by the absorp¬ 
tion of this oxygen rendered heavier than the granite by 
pressure, would be sufficient to do all the crushing observed 
in the structure of different formations; especially since the 
affinity with which the substances combine is so great as to 
hold the oxygen in a condition three times more dense than 
water after the pressure is removed, and still leave granite, 
one of the strongest and most durable of rocks. 

The doubtful factor in relation to the separate, specific 
gravity of oxygen in combinations, is as to the relative bulk 
of the hydrogen in the water. Hydrogen combines with but 
few substances except first in combination with oxygen in the 
form of water; and therefore there is but meager data from 
which to elucidate its most compact form. Further than 
this, there is such an interminable conflict of authority as to 
the specific gravity of hydrates, that we are left in doubt as 
to whether the one-ninth by weight constitutes one-third or 
two-thirds of the bulk of water. If it constitutes two-thirds 
the bulk, then the oxygen in water has nearly the specific 
gravity of granite. Davy and Berzelius have raised new 


58 BARTON ’5 'RIGID EARTH. 

doubts (or have thrown new light) on the relation of oxygen 
and silicium. The latter of the substances, when pure, m 
found to be very light. 

The researches of Caletet and Pictet, in 1878, showed that 
both oxygen and hydrogen could be reduced to the solid 
form by pressure, and that in no case was a pressure of 
more than 500 atmospheres necessary to secure this result 
with hydrogen. This would only be about one-seventeenth 
part of the pressure requisite to reduce superheated steam to 
the density of water, and would allow us to look for a sepa¬ 
ration of the properties of water under a much less pressure 
than the weight of seventeen miles of lava. Hence we are 
entitled to assume that it is the wonderful affinity of this 
substance for oxygen which prevents it from parting with all 
its caloric and assuming the solid form in the depths of the 
ocean. 

Many experiments have been made with a view to the 
use of water as a fuel. Most of these experiments seem to 
have been made in disregard of the great fact that water is 
simply the condition of two gases after having endured com¬ 
bustion, and that these gases must be restored to their prim¬ 
itive state before combustion can be employed again. This 
may be done by the application of heat as well as other 
chemical re-agents. 

If a glowing piece of charcoal be covered with hot em¬ 
bers, and air be then excluded by hot ashes, but little of 
the coal will be consumed though left buried for several days; 
but if a green stick be substituted for the piece of charcoal, 
large enough to contain the same amount of carbon, but 
carrying twice that amount of water, by weight, it will bo 
found that combustion has taken place in a few hours, and 
that the carbon, uniting with the oxygen in the water, ha& 
disappeared in the form of carbonic acid gas. 

Some of the acids have been employed, as we have already 
seen, in liberating hydrogen by depriving it of its oxygen 
when in the form of water. Any force which may be em¬ 
ployed in separating the constituent elements of water will 
furnish the means of producing a fuel—the heat evolved by 


FORMA TION OF OXIDES. 


59 


combustion and the coldness produced by segregation being 
balancing forces. Hence, we conclude that any combustion 
sustained by the elements of water only represent the force 
employed in separating them. 

Among the negative results which would be likely to fol¬ 
low, in case pressure deprived water of its oxygen, would be 
the formation of the great family of hydro-carbons, gener¬ 
ally designated as coal oil. If the hydrogen come in contact 
with carbon, a chemical union would be all that would be 
lacking. 

It will perhaps be urged that the facts cited in this volume 
tend to show that hydrogen is solidified with less pressure 
than oxygen. Caletet and Pictet employed in solidifying 
hydrogen less than five hundred atmospheres. Nothing is 
known to show that oxygen requires much more; for the 
combination in w 7 ater may have a stronger affinity for calorie 
than either. 

Hydro-carbon is present in all the older classes of sedi¬ 
mentary rocks, without reference to their relation to coal; 
and hydrogen has probably carried off the missing carbon 
in some of the Silurian and Devonian formations. 

Carbon is constantly being brought up from the interior, 
in combination with both oxygen and hydrogen. Suppose 
we should reason the other way from most writers, and ask 
how long is this process to continue before we have a new 
carboniferous epoch? 

The advocates of the theory of an age of carbon and of 
steam have overlooked two very important geological truths. 
One is that there is very little lack of carbon iq older 
formations; the other is that all the older rocks are con¬ 
stantly sending carbon to the surface. 

.Reverting again to the peculiarities of deposits and forma¬ 
tions in the placer mines, one other fact is worthy of re¬ 
mark, and one which I have never known to challenge any¬ 
one’s attention. It is this:— 

Following very nearly the central trend of the great lime- 
belt is a series of gravel deposits yielding gold which assays 
from .900 to .985; while parallel with this line, on either side 


6o 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


at distances of from three to five miles, are lines of gravel 
deposits yielding gold, assaying only .860 fine. The line of 
fine gold runs from Columbia to Yiaceta, Volcano, Indian 
Diggings, and White Rock, above Placerville. The average 
of assays from these localities would be about .930. Let 
us contrast these with assays from Jimtown, Angels, Dry- 
town, Fairplay, Shingle Springs, and Coloma. We shall 
find them very little above .850, and if the line ran through 
Salt Spring Valley, in Calaveras County, we should find 
them much lower. Intermediate lines would give inter¬ 
mediate results. While on the other side of the line, to the 
eastward, still lower assays can be had. 

A diagram study of assays of California gold would be 
interesting, and fine gold would be seen to merge into the 
electrum or gold and silver alloy of the eastern slope. 

John S. Hittell has undertaken to compile a list of assays 
of California ,gold, but has made such confusion in locating 
mining camps and placers as to leave his work of little value 
in this respect. The following locations in Tuolumne County 
are credited to Amador County, viz.:— 

Brown’s Flat, Douglass’ Villa, East Columbia, (lower part 
of main gulch) East Columbia, (upper part of main gulch) 
Knapp’s Ranch, Matlot Gulch, Fine Log, Bensonville, San 
Diego Gulch, Sawmill Flat, Springfield Flat, Three Pines, 
Gold Hill, and Yankee Hill. These places were the most 
noted mining localities in Tuolumne County, and marked 
the circuit of what was probably the greatest placer deposit 
in the known world. • Again, the county seat of Amador 
County is included among the mining camps of Calaveras 
.County, as also the town of El Dorado, in El|Dorado County- 

A correct table or diagram of assays would throw a great 
deal of light on the relation of the wall rock to the gold- 
bearing matrix. On the other hand, the character of the 
matrix may perhaps be determined by the character of the 
wall rock. A black silicate of iron, sometimes found massive 
between the lime formation and the adjacent slate, has prob¬ 
ably furnished much of the gold found in the great Tuolumne 
placer. In this connection I will quote from Professor Hanks’ 


FORMATION OF OXIDES. 


6 1 


report of the State Mining Bureau in regard to the rare min¬ 
eral, roscoelite. 

“ This very rare mineral was described in the second annual 
report, folio 262, and a history given of its discovery, but, as 
many who receive this report will not be able to refer to the 
former, I have thought best to insert the whole paper here:— 

“ ‘ Roscoelite is a new and extremely rare mineral found in 
El Dorado County, California. * 

“ ‘Attention was first called to it by the reading of a paper 
by Dr. James Blake, at a meeting of the San Francisco Mi¬ 
croscopical Society, July 2, 1874. The specimens then ex¬ 
hibited were from a mine or claim, known as the “Stuck- 
slager,” “Plum Tree,” or “Sam Simms” mine, which lies in 
Section 24, Township 11 north, and Range 9 east, Mt. 
Diablo base and meridian; somewhat more than a mile from 
the town of Coloma, in a southwest direction. 

“ ‘ At a meeting of the California Academy of Sciences, held 
on July 20, 1874, Dr. Blake presented specimens of the same 
mineral, which he then supposed to be a chromium mica, 
having, in a preliminary examination, found as he supposed, 
chromic acid combined with silicia, potash, and lithium. 
Gold was also associated with the mineral in considerable 
quantities. He stated that it was found at Granite Creek, 
near Coloma, El Dorado County, remarking at the same time 
that the associated minerals were an interesting and beau¬ 
tiful microscopic study, and that the formation indicated 
that the gold must have been deposited between the flakes 
of the mica from an aqueous solution. He gave the new 
mineral the provisional name of “ Golomite ,” from the locality. 

““ The next notice appears in the proceedings of the Califor 
nia Academj 7 of Sciences, Yol. 6, 1875, folio 150. At a meet¬ 
ing held August 2, of that year, Dr. Blake read a paper on 
“ Roscoelite ,” a new mineral, in which he admitted that he 
had stated at a former meeting that the mineral contained a 
large quantity of chromic acid, an opinion derived from the 
results of superficial blowpipe tests. He had since sent sam¬ 
ples to Dr. Genth, of Philadelphia, who found it to contain 
vanadium. He had given the name Roscoelite as a compli- 


62 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


ment to Professor Eoscoe, of Manchester, England, who has 
made vanadium a special study. In a foot-note, Dr. Blake 
expresses the opinion that vanadium may occur in these rocks 
in larger quantities than is generally supposed; and calls 
attention to the fact that Dr. Hall has found it widely dif¬ 
fused in many rocks. 

44 4 The vein from which the roscoelite was taken is small and 
not continuous, varying from two inches to a foot in thick¬ 
ness, running nearly parallel with Granite Creek. 

44 4 The quartz is ferruginous in appearance, and is associated 
with calcite and slaty matter, and at least two varieties of 
pyrites. Gold occurs only with the roscoelite, and usually 
in parts of the vein where the quartz disappears or 44 pinches 
out” as the miners express it. 

44 ‘Eoscoelite was for a long time a mystery to the miners? 
and was first mistaken for plumbago. The pioneer placer 
miners at Big Eed Eavine used to complain of the difficulty of 
saving the gold, owing to the interference of the 44 black 
stuff” as they designated it. In all probability, a large quan¬ 
tity of gold was allowed to escape from ignorance of the nat¬ 
ure of this mineral. 

4 4 4 Gold is found interstratified with laminae of roscoelite, or 
embedded in it, in pieces from the value of one dollar to the 
minutest microscopic particles. 

44 4 The method of operation at the mine has been to remove 
superficial slaty covering by ground sluicing, and carefully 
working the small but exceedingly rich material found in the 
pay-seam. From one pan of this, forty ounces of gold have 
been taken; from another, gold to the value of $100 was ob¬ 
tained. The fineness of the gold is .846. 

44 4 Under the microscope, roscoelite is seen to be in scales and 
radiated tufts, the luster of which is silvery or pearly to a 
high degree—almost metallic by strong reflected light; color, 
light steel gray, yellowish, dark green, or nearly black, as 
seen in different lights. Small deeply striated crj^stals of 
white iron pyrites are sometimes seen in freshly broken sur¬ 
faces of quartz, partly embedded. The quartz in actual contact 
with roscoelite is generally transparent and nearly colorless; 


FORMA TION OF OXIDES. 


63 


sometimes rose-colored or amethystine. Although rather 
common in the ores, pyrites have not been observed in con¬ 
tact with roscoelite. 

“ ‘ When magnified seventy diameters, roscoelite resembles 
the variety of pyrophyllite found at Greaser Gulch, Mariposa 
County. As far as observed, the asociated gold is always 
bright, of good color and amorphous, generally rounded as 
if water-worn. 

“ ‘ The other mineral associates of roscoelite arecalcite and 
a yellow mineral, which is probably marcasite or chalcopyrite, 
found only in microscopic quantities. 

“ ‘ The only other known locality of roscoelite in the State is 
in Section 31, Township 11 north, and Bange 10 east, two miles 
from the Sam Simms mine. Big Bed Bavine is on this sec¬ 
tion, lying only two miles from the site of Sutter’s mill, 
where gold was first discovered. It was one of the earliest 
placer mines known in the State, and so rich did it prove, 
that it has paid to re-work as many as seven times. It is in 
the bedrock of these old workings that roscoelite is found. 

“ T am indebted to Mr Geo, W. Kimble, surveyor of El Dor¬ 
ado County, for valuable information and for specimens of 
this rare and interesting mineral—with him I walked over 
the ground while he pointed out the localities. The largest 
mass found here was taken out by a Chinaman, and is de¬ 
scribed as having been as large as a gallon measure. From 
first to last four hundred to five hundred pounds of roscoe¬ 
lite have been obtained, all of which was wasted in extract¬ 
ing the gold. 

“ ‘I was only able to obtain for the State Museum a thin 
piece of quartz of a few inches superficial surface, coated on 
both sides with roscoelite; some large masses showing the 
mineral in spots, and some beautiful microscopical specimens 
containing gold. 

“ ‘ At the Bed Bavine locality, roscoelite is found in a dark 
colored bluish micaceous rock in small seams of quartz and 
calcite with gold. This rock has not yet been studied. 

“ ‘Through the politeness of Mr. James Taylor, of Owen’s 
College, Manchester, England, I have been furnished with 
the following analysis of roscoelite:— 


64 BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 

“ ‘Analysis of roscoelite by Professor H. E. Roscoe, of 
Owen’s College, Manchester, England— 

Silica.. . .. .. ..- 41.25 

Vanadic acid (V, 2: 0, 5). 28.60 

Alumina. 12.84 

Sesquioxide of iron. 1.13 

Oxide of manganese (Mn., 3; O, 4). 1.10 

Lime. 0.61 

Magnesia. 2.61 

Potash. 8.56 

Soda. 0.82 

Water combined... 1.08 

Moisture. 2.27 


Total 100.27 


The formation of kaolin is but a change in the form of the- 
oxide, and the formation of the roscoelite, as elsewhere re¬ 
marked, is but a replacing of a portion of the aluminum of 
kaolin with vanadic acid. The manner in which this action 
takes place, and in which the gold is combined, will be 
more fully considered under the head of the “ Formation of 
Ore Bodies.” 

There is one evidence that the oxidizing and deoxidizing 
forces are about equal in nature to which we have not re¬ 
ferred. It is this:— 

The weight of the whole atmosphere would only repre¬ 
sent enough hydrogen to answer for the decomposition of 
about two hundred and eighty feet of water over the whol& 
earth. Now, as we have seen, a cubic foot of granite con¬ 
tains more oxygen than a cubic foot of water. There prob¬ 
ably is not more than half that proportion of oxygen in the 
ocean bed, but after making every possible allowance we 
shall find that there is not enough hydrogen in the world to 
deoxidize the solid earth to the depth of five hundred feet. 
For, to suppose that this oxygen ever added to the aggre¬ 
gate of the fluids of the earth is to encounter a difficulty. 

It must be assumed that all the upper regions of the at¬ 
mosphere are hydrogen. 

There is no evidence that even a moiety of the weight of 
the atmosphere is hydrogen; and none that the atmosphero 














FORMATION OF OXIDES. 


65 

was ever heavier than it is at present. On the other hand 
a period of combustion must have been characterized by the 
oxidizing of hydrogen, or the production of water. Hence, 
the igneous theory would.carry us back to the time when 
there was no water. The advocates of the igneous theory, 
however, instead of taking this view of the case, generally 
picture the budding earth as appearing beneath a cauldron of 
steam. 

In view of the difficulties of proving the reverse, it is sug¬ 
gested that we accept the proposition that the mean temper¬ 
ature of the whole earth has always been, and will always 
remain, exactly the same, owing to the impossibility of the 
escape of any property. 

If we conclude that granite underlies all other formations 
we shall reach the conclusion that one-half the weight of the 
whole earth is oxygen, without reckoning the eight-ninths 
of oxygen of which the ocean is composed. If the visible 
supply of hydrogen was sufficient we might then inquire 
whether all this oxygen was once in the form of water; but 
hydrogen is the lightest of all substances and has but a slight 
affinity for anything but oxygen. It is, therefore, not in its 
nature to sink into the earth except in the form of water. 
Half the atmosphere by weight, to the tops of the highest 
mountains, is free from it, and we search in vain for the re¬ 
pository of any great body of it. It has gravity and could 
not have escaped to the regions of space. Hence there has 
been no lessening of the volume of the ocean. We conclude, 
then, that the oxidizing and deoxidizing processes are bal¬ 
ancing forces in perpetuity. 

As a corollary to this logic, it must be concluded that the 
process of combustion is as rapid and general now as it ever 
was. 

Thus, step by step, we shall reach the conclusion that the 
mean temperature of the -whole earth, taken as a unit, is 
perpetually the same; and that animal and vegetable life 
can and does endure as high a temperature to-day as it ever 
did endure. Whatever the laws of evolution may have to 
do in changing the form of animal and vegetable life, it has 
nothing to do with the laws governing the status and perpe- 
5 


66 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


tuity of matter. Matter is imperishable and the laws gov¬ 
erning it eternal. 

Further than this, it is entirely too early in the day for 
geology to attempt to declare when it was that life first 
entered the world. Every organism is but an epitome of the 
oxidizing and deoxidizing processes going on in the mate¬ 
rial universe. Let combustion stop and life ceases. This 
was the law in the Silurian Ago, it is the law now. 

In the merging of atoms, the movement of the universe 
around a common center gave rise to annular and diurnal 
rotation, as the outstanding balance between internal and 
external velocities. Thus we trace the descent of this pa¬ 
rental movement into seasons and days. It merges into 
winds and tides; and by tracing its effect still further we 
shall probably find that it is the parent of all motion, all 
organism, all life. 

If this latter suggestion is correct then we shall be pre¬ 
pared to look for evidences of life coeval with the first mar¬ 
shaling of atoms from surrounding cosmos. 

Eeverting again to the fact that the older rocks are con¬ 
stantly sending carbon to the surface, it behooves us to in¬ 
quire what force it is which produces the supply of rock oil, 
which for the last quarter of a century has been obtained in 
such abundance from the interior of the earth. 

It has generally been held that artesian wells were sup¬ 
plied from the drainage of higher ground, as the results of 
gravitation. But when we shall find a well with ample flow 
situated on the crest of an isolated ridge, then we will be¬ 
gin to question as to whether an explanation of the cause of 
this phenomenon may be rendered so simply. 

If it could be shown that the sulphur which the water 
generally holds in solution was in the form of a hydrate, then 
we might infer that there had been a decomposition of water 
deep down in the earth, and that the heat disengaged by the 
incorporation of oxygen into the rocks had been the means 
of forcing the water to the surface. 

On the other hand, if the liberated hydrogen had come in 
contact with carbon instead of sulphur, the result would have 


FORMA TION OF OXIDES. 


6 7 


been rock oil instead of sulphureted hydrogen. The effect 
in either case would be to produce an artesian flow. Other 
combinations might give the constituents of a combustible 
gas. 

If these surmises are correct, then oil wells, artesian wells, 
and wells of combustible gas, must be sought for in forma¬ 
tions where oxygen is being absorbed; whether it is on the 
top of a mountain or the depression of a valley; and forma¬ 
tions which are mainly composed of oxygen must be avoided 
as being no longer a source of supply for these products 
which result from the decomposition of water. 

Combustible gas has a greater proportion of hydrogen in 
its composition than rock oil; and hence we should conclude 
that the oxidizing process disengages more carbon in the 
one case than in the other in proportion to the oxygen ab¬ 
sorbed or the water decomposed. 

If this reasoning is correct, then we might look for combus¬ 
tible gas in formations where the process of disengaging 
carbon has become weak or where the supply is measurably 
exhausted. Hence, we conclude that gas must be reached at 
greater depth and in regions nearer the granite. 

The question would then present itself as to whether an 
artesian belt in alluvium where the subjacent formation was 
highly metamorphic was not likely to yield combustible gas 
without the presence of any oil-bearing formation. 

Such a region would be most of the valley bordering the 
western base of the Sierra Nevada; while in the Coast 
Bange, in many places an artesian flow would be supple¬ 
mented by oil lower down. Still it is worthy of inquiry as 
to whether combustible gas may not be reached beneath all 
oil measures and beneath all artesian belts. 

The existence of volcanoes, geysers, earthquakes, gas 
wells, oil wells, artesian wells and mineral springs, all speak 
of the decomposition of water by pressure and the absorp¬ 
tion of oxygen in the production of granite. This process 
would be in harmony with the elevating of coast lines and 
the building up of mountain chains. The transition and 
sedimentary rocks, in which the forces appear, having given 


68 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


up sulphur and carbon to the escaping hydrogen, would de¬ 
velop a new and startling affinity for a prime equivalent of 
the oxygen released by the decomposition of water. Ab¬ 
sorption and expansion would thus go hand in hand until a 
perfect saturation with oxygen had produced the most com¬ 
pact and the most ponderous of rocks, and had lifted them 
high enough above the sea to become the base of mountain 
chains. 

The escaping hydrogen, instead of coming directly to the 
surface might flow to a weaker point in the superincumbent 
formation and thus lift the whole like a blanket. 

The so-called mud lumps at the mouth of the Mississippi 
afford instances of the direct escape of the hydrogen. 

Step by step we thus trace volcanic forces, in their process 
of granite-making, along the margins of continents and 
other points of contact between the newer and the more 
highly oxidized formations. The expansive force would of 
course meet the greater resistance in direction of the axis of 
the line of action. Hence granite quarries might reveal a 
tendency for the rock to expand in the direction of the axis 
of the mountain chain. Such a phenomenon has frequently 
been observed. Water, then, is essential in quantity, in the 
contact, to produce volcanic action. 

With a complete oxidizing of adjacent formations volcanic 
action must cease and the denuding forces must soon obliter¬ 
ate many evidences of its existence; and to this cause alone 
may be attributed the greater evidence of volcanic action in 
the Tertiary and Quartinary Periods. 

Off the Florida Keys and along the Atlantic sea-board, 
sedimentary formations may be supposed to meet a pressure 
sufficient to produce rapid oxidation. We have no means of 
knowing but that the same condition exists in the southern por¬ 
tion of the Mississippi Yalley. On the other hand the earth¬ 
quake shocks experienced at New Madrid in 1811 and 1812 
go far to prove the depth of the sedimentary formations in 
that region of the continent, while freedom from such dis¬ 
turbances in the region of the great lakes would tend to show 
that the Archian formations of the far north may dip very 
gradually toward the mouth of the Ohio. 


FORMA TION OF OXIDES . . 


69 


It would seem, then, that in regions where sedimentary- 
formations rise above sea level and are less than six thousand 
feet deep, there is likely to be immunity from earthquakes and 
volcanic action,—except, indeed, it be through the medium of 
transmitted shocks or transmitted forces. 

If it should be found that hot springs, artesian oil wells, 
etc., could be found in a true granite formation, then this 
argument would fall to the ground; and the question will at 
once occur as to whether volcanoes continue to act in regions 
where the whole of the subjacent formations are in the high¬ 
est state of oxidation. The effect of every oxidizing process 
going on in nature is to feed the current of magnetic force. 


Electric Currents. 


That the earth is a great magnet, is admitted by all elec¬ 
tricians. Morse used two wires at first, but soon the solid 
earth was substituted as the medium of conveying the return 
current. 

Currents of electricity encircle the magnet in a spiral 
course, and appear to move around the magnet in the direc¬ 
tion of the hands of a watch to a person looking along the 
positive line of force. 

The North pole is the positive pole of the magnetic earth. 
Hence, currents of electricity passing from the positive to 
the negative pole—from the north pole to the south—would 
move from weBt to east. 

Currents of electricity move only upon the surface of the 
magnet, while the line of magnetic force is in the center. 

Reference to these laws governing the action of electricity 
will be necessary in dealing with the next branch of our 
subject. 

(7°) 



Formation of Ore Bodies. 


No other question connected with the science of geology 
so deeply concerns the practical affairs of. civilized life as 
does the laws governing the formation of ore bodies. No 
race has ever sustained a high civilization without a knowl¬ 
edge of the metals. With a thorough knowledge of the nature 
of iron and the means of reducing it, the aborigines w T ould never 
have surrendered the American continent to the white man. 
Trace the work of the sewing machine and spindle, and con¬ 
trast it with fabrics united with sinew by the use of a sharp- 
pointed bone, and the train of thoughts suggested will soon 
disclose to us the utility of a knowledge of the metals. Yet, 
notwithstanding the importance of knowing where to mine 
and how to mine, the miners of the Pacific Coast have ex¬ 
hausted half the aggregate energies of their lives in the 
endeavor to demonstrate the theory of a melted interior of 
the earth. Miles upon miles of tunnels have been run in the 
ridges of the western slope in the vain hope of tapping “ the 
central basin.” It must be remembered that the igneous the¬ 
ory was so comprehensive as to include the water-worn 
gravel deposits of the Miocene formation. River channels 
covered, in some instances it is true, with volcanic ash, were 
looked upon as an outflow of erupted matter. 

At the time of the discovery of gold at Yolcano, in Ama¬ 
dor County, California, men traveled hundreds of miles to see 
“ the volcano.” Thousands returned, querying in their own 
minds as to how anyone knew it was a volcano. Professor 
Whitney speaks of this formation as “ashes and pumice 
stratified by water.” 

Rut to come direct to the consideration of the subject, we 
propose to suggest that earthquakes and volcanoes probably 

( 7 1 ) 



72 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


have no more than an incidental relation to the formation of 
metal-bearing lodes. Fissures and rents do occur in the earth 
from volcanic action and other causes; and when so formed, 
even though artificial, they are liable to become the recepta¬ 
cles of ore deposits. 

As we have already seen, currents of electricity constantly 
encircle the surface of the earth, running from west to east, 
and though theoretically spiral, yet with spirals so short as to 
leave the course of the currents almost exactly at right angles 
with the course of the magnet. 

In the Daniels battery a solution of sulphate of copper is 
employed to take up the hydrogen disengaged by the action 
of acid and water on the zinc plate. The hydrogen releases 
the copper from the solution, and it is carried by the electric 
current to the copper plate and there deposited. 

In the electric light, the current of electricity is made suf¬ 
ficiently strong to jump across an intervening space between 
a positive and negative carbon. In doing so, small pieces of 
carbon are detached and carried to the negative carbon, 
where they are lodged and volatilized by the concentrated 
heat of the obstructed current. 

In electrotyping and electroplating, the electric current is 
made to take up a metal in solution and deposit it in a solid 
form. 

But it is useless to instance cases in which electric currents 
take up metals in solution or saturating substances, and de¬ 
posit them where they meet a stronger affinity or a weaker 
current. It is probably impossible to generate any electric 
current without producing more or less of these effects. 

Assuming that in the prime condition of cosmical matter 
all ultimate atoms saturated each other we shall have the 
electric currents which encircle the earth coming in contact 
with metallic properties in the same condition they are in 
when held in complete chemical solution. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances we have seen the electric currents taking them 
up and carrying them to where there was a break in the cur¬ 
rent such as would be caused by a fissure, or to where they 
came in contact with a stronger affinity. Let some of the 


FORMA TION OF ORE BODIES. 


7 3 


substances constituting their affinities be carried with them, 
and we have at once the metal-bearing lode. Nor need we 
demand volcanic heat to complete crystallization. The merest 
tyro in chemistry will recall a thousand and one instances 
in which the work of his laboratory was retarded while the 
cooling process was employed to encourage the formation of 
crystals. Here, then, we have the metal-bearing lode com. 
plete, with all its sparkling gems of crystallization, with no 
heat employed except that which was incidental to the action 
of the electric current, or the chemical action of new combi¬ 
nations. 

Now let us go a step farther. We have seen that the oxi¬ 
dized and deoxidized formations had something of an axial 
trend, in- consequence of the great sediment-bearing currents 
having descended from the region of the pole. These differ¬ 
ent ratios of oxidation will act upon each other and help to 
feed the electric currents of the earth’s surface. The oxygen¬ 
seeking formations will attract the oxides while the sub¬ 
stances which repel ogygen will remain in the metallic state 
or in combination with other minerals in close proximity to 
formations already saturated with oxygen and having no 
attraction therefor. 

Hence, we should expect to find formations highly charged 
with oxygen to repose in close proximity to the western wall 
of veins highly charged with gold, platina, silver, or tin. Iron, 
with its great affinity for oxygen might be expected to be 
found dispersed through all the sedimentary formations. If 
lead should be thus dispersed it would have first to give up 
a large percentage of the silver with which it so readily com¬ 
bines, and with which it is always associated when found in 
highly oxidized formations. 

The falling of a large body of the hanging wall of a fissure 
before the ore body is formed, may result in a “horse” in the 
lode, and at the same time give the surface outcrop all the 
appearance of a distorted trend, as was the case with the 
Comstock. In many cases bodies of the eastern wall had 
fallen, and had assumed electric connection with the western 
wall, whereby the fissure and the ore body were carried four 
or five hundred feet to the east. 


74 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


Again, a “ horse” may fill in the chasm and become a con¬ 
ductor, by which the metal-bearing current is carried to a 
companion fissure further east, as was the case in numerous 
instances on the Mother Lode. 

In a fissure between a formation mainly composed of silex 
and alumina on the one side and a formation of carbonate 
of lime on the other, large, rough bodies of agate and chal¬ 
cedony are frequently formed in lieu of quartz, though gen¬ 
erally in shapeless masses, embedded in clay; and there are 
instances, even in California, in which all the various rocks 
characteristic of such fissures have been found to contain 
gold. The finding of many rich pockets of auriferous clay 
in such position in which the gold showed little or no evi¬ 
dence of being water-worn, together with the actual exist¬ 
ence of gold in chalcedony, calcite, etc., is good evidence 
that it was formed in these fissures. We conclude, then, that 
the great body of the placer gold of California did not float 
up the mountain side from the Mother Lode to the lime belt, 
but that it was formed in close proximity to the latter. 

By a careful application of the suggestions herein set forth, 
we shall reach the conclusion that most of the gold-bearing 
formations of the Pacific Slope have been torn down by the 
denuding power of time and the elements; and that the im¬ 
perishable metal was lodged among the silts and sediments of 
the water-courses. We shall also learn to expect no great 
deposit of gold deep in the bowels of the earth if there is 
none on the surface. Probably very few gold leads will be 
found to extend one mile under ground. 

Of the highly oxidized rocks the granite stands at the 
head—having nearly two-thirds of its composition by 
weight made up of oxygen. Of the great rock formations, 
lime combines the least oxygen, and taken as a whole, prob¬ 
ably not more than one-third by weight is of that material. 
Besides this, the combined forces of the affinity of carbon 
for lime, and the affinity of iron and many other substances 
for oxygen, has doubtless expelled the sulphur from com¬ 
bination with calcium and other metals, thereby converting 
beds of gypsum into mountain limestone and metallic sul- 


FORMATION OF ORE BODIES . 


75 


phurets intb carbonates. This would account for sulphur 
springs, and would complete the circuit of that carbonic acid 
constantly thrown into the air and thence returned to the 
earth in rain-water. In facilitating this action the aluminum 
of the granite offers no affinity whatever for carbonic acid, 
while a slight affinity between silicium and carbonic acid 
will explain the existence of flints in the fissures of the lead 
mines of Wisconsin. 

Contact veins running nearly at right angles with the 
course of the electric current, and having a large field of 
granite supporting the western wall, with talc, serpentine, 
lime, or sedimentary rocks to the eastward, are liable to be 
richest in gold, platina, silver, tin, and all other metals not 
easily oxidizable. 

This law would be somewhat modified in different countries 
by the modified bearing of the magnetic pole. The favorable 
bearing would be one which slightly glanced the electric 
current to the south; thus causing it to traverse the walls of 
the lead without recoiling on its own course or conflicting 
with itself It will probably be found that there are but few 
gold-bearing leads where the trend of the fissure is east and 
west or parallel with the electric currents of the earth; and 
that these are not remarkable for richness. Furthermore, as 
already indicated, a good gold lead need scarcely be expected 
where a heavy field of feldspathic granite backs up the east¬ 
ern wall with no other formation intervening. In Wisconsin, 
a lead lode will be found running southward along a north and 
south fissure for some distance, and then dropping a hun¬ 
dred yards to the eastward through a cross fissure will con¬ 
tinue its course southward through a parallel fissure, while 
the south end of the western fissure and the north end of the 
eastern fissure are barren, or perhaps, “closed as tight as a 
miser’s fist.” The east and west “range” of mineral connects 
the mineral of the two fissures. In some of these lodes a 
seam of galena no thicker than a knife-blade is all that leads 
the miner from one ore body to another. 

Doubtless the precious metals in their original cosmical 
condition are still, more or less, diffused through all earthy 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


76 

substances, and that a trace of them may therefore be found 
in any and every mineral vein; but it is the mountains with 
a north and south trend which have yielded to commerce the 
great percentage of the precious metals, for instance: the 
Andes, Cordilleras, Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Ural, 
Southern Alps, Australian Alps, etc. 

If we study the trend of eruptive forces as laid down by 
scientists we shall find them quite independent of those of 
metal-bearing veins. That lines of volcanic disturbances 
have any great tendency to observe an axial trend is not yet 
made clear by any observations. On the other hand, the 
laws governing electricity are revealed by a study of the 
magnet, whose unerring fidelity has conducted commerce to 
every clime, has brought the tribes of men into universal 
brotherhood, and has given a new civilization to the world. 

Though it is evident that lime and gold have very little 
affinity, and though lime is seldom found in any proportion 
in a metal-bearing vein, and, perhaps, never as an electric de¬ 
posit, still, it is evident that its negative character adds force 
to the magnetic current, and from this reasoning we deduce 
an explanation of the proximity of mountain limestone to 
the rich goldfields. 

In 1886 , a law was passed by Congress providing for the 
survey and sale of the mineral lands. The local laws, on 
the Pacific, generally limited miners to a claim one or two 
hundred feet square. The ground not actually occupied was 
mainly returned as abandoned mineral land, and was sold as 
agricultural lands. The result was that in the southern 
counties, in the mining district of California, placer mining 
nearly ceased. Enough prospecting continued in quartz, 
however, to develop several rich pockets in Tuolumne County. 
The richest of these pockets were in broken and fragment¬ 
ary sheet quartz running between the lime and slate. In 
these cases the gold showed no evidence whatever of being 
water-worn, and in many cases was found adhering to, or em¬ 
bedded in the quartz. In the town of Sonora, a half ton of 
gold was taken from a shaft located within a few feet of the 
line of contact between the lime and the slate, and with slate 


FORMATION OF ORE BODIES. 


77 


as its western wall. This pocket was far below any recent 
aqueous deposit, and clearly in its original position, if we 
except the decomposition of the quartz. The location was 
entirely west of the lime-belt. 

At Experimental G ulch, north of Columbia, a broken ledge 
was found on the east side of one of the small slate ridges, 
heretofore spoken of, which yielded several thousand dollars. 
This lead was thought by many to be merely a gravel de¬ 
posit. But in 1884, and after the body of this work had 
been written, I visited the locality, and succeeded in find¬ 
ing a sheet of the quartz, a rod square and a foot and a-half 
thick, still in place, and dipping to the east under the lime- 
rock—the foot wall there being called by the miners “block- 
ledge.” From this deposit I obtained several fine specimens 
of gold-bearing quartz. A third quartz deposit bearing gold 
and similarly located is in Matlot Gulch, within the limits of 
the town of Columbia. 

From the foregoing facts it is concluded that though Over¬ 
man may be correct in his proposition that a good gold or 
silver ledge never occurs between two lime walls, still, a 
broad formation of mountain limestone in proximity, is an 
important factor in determining the value of a gold field. 

There are a few instances where gold-bearing quartz has 
been found in veins having granite for the eastern wall, as in 
the Lewis Mine, in Tuolumne County, California, the Ella, in 
Calaveras County, and also at the Reward Mine at George¬ 
town, in El Dorado County. Still, it is doubtful whether this 
refers to anything more than the rock immediately in con¬ 
tact. As a rule the most highly oxidized rocks are at 
the west, and taking the adjacent formation instead of the 
actual contact, the rule may apply in these cases also. 
Writers frequently fail to discriminate between granite and 
greenstone, and a close inspection of these granites may 
show them deficient in oxygen. 

Where a trap dyke is cut by a ledge of gold-bearing quartz 
there is likely to be found a rich pocket of gold at the inter¬ 
section, but when the ledge is cut by the trap the gold will 
probably be found to have been transferred to a fissure 


78 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


further west. Trap dykes and cross fractures thus become 
feeders, and their intersection with the main ledge are 
points famous for rich discoveries. 

In the Lecompton Mine, in Nevada County, the fissure cuts 
both the granite and the slate without being thrown out of 
its course. 

There is but little significance to be attached to the ques¬ 
tion of a foot or hanging wall; but the most of the gold will 
generally be found near the west wall. A horse” may, 
however, transfer it to the body of the lode, or it may be ar¬ 
rested on the eastern wall by the circumstance of abetter and 
a more continuous casing. As a rule, however, the most of 
the gold must be looked for on or near the western wall. 

Of course there are numerous instances in which small leads 
have failed to conform exactly to these rules. In the White 
River District, in Tulare County, California, there is a system 
of small veins running to the north of east and having syen- 
itic granite in both walls which carries some gold. None of 
these veins, however, have yielded paying rock at a depth 
of two hundred feet, and instances are very rare where they 
have been worked at a profit below a depth of twenty feet. 
Their dip is to the southeast at a low angle, and their pay is 
on the foot wall. 

Several important iron mines near Rockaway, New Jersey, 
are similarly located, both as it respects walls and trend— 
the walls being granitic gneiss and their trend northeast. 
One of these mines, however, farther west than the others, 
and reposing against the base of the Copperas Mountain, has 
for its west wall, or at least in close proximity, a peculiar for¬ 
mation of hornstone porphyry which is believed to have no 
representative in any other part of the world. Angular crys¬ 
tals and fragments of quartz, feldspar, and jasper, are scat¬ 
tered profusely through the blue hornstone base, the whole 
constituting one of the hardest of known rocks, and pre¬ 
senting a variegated color truly beautiful. 

This last-mentioned formation constitutes the backbone of 
the Copperas Mountain, and its highly oxidized character 
would lead us to expect a trace of gold and silver near the 
west wall of the vein. 


FORMATION OF ORE BODIES. 


79 


Some of the small veins in the tin mines at Cornwall run 
nearly east and west, but they are very irregular and distorted 
and have never been traced any great distance, and we are 
entitled to infer the existence of a larger body of ore yet 
undiscovered, to which this deranged system is attached as 
feeders. 

It could hardly occur that a fissure would run exactly par¬ 
allel with the electric current of the magnetic earth. One of 
the walls of a long fissure must therefore intercept some of 
the currents. Thus in the extended fissures of the sediment¬ 
ary formation many metallic oxides and sulphurets are found. 
In fact all the various combinations of the baser metals. 

Water is a poor vehicle for the transfer of the metals of an 
electric current, and the probability is that most of the ore 
and metal deposits took place while the fissure was filled with 
water; and the combined action subsequent of air and water 
on the substances composing the walls may have resulted 
in decomposing the silicates in the matrix; and in releasing 
the native metal. This is the process employed in the pro¬ 
duction of kaolin clay. Silex and alkali decompose the gran¬ 
ite wall by reacting on each other, and a percentage is 
carried away by natural leeching, leaving an excess of 
alumina. 

If we accept a theory already understood by every man¬ 
ufacturer of glass, that the silicates and alkalies have a 
chemical action on each other, we shall expect lime and talc 
formations to have an action on the gold-bearing matrix as 
soon as exposed to the action of both air and water; and 
these may be the chief agents in releasing the native metal 
from the matrix. This wasting away is undoubtedly the 
chief cause which has served to conceal the fact that rich 
gold leads have existed in California in proximity to mountain 
limestone. 

The gold leads of California speak of a time when the 
river channels were not so deep as now, and when gravel 
deposits spread over a large portion of the western base of 
the Sierra Nevada Mountains below a present altitude of four 
thousand feet. The indications are that these Miocene gravel 


8 o 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


deposits are the detritus of a much heavier current than that 
now represented by melting snow, but the scope of this work 
precludes the further consideration of the forces which have 
given rise to excessive and long-continued currents of water. 

A very large percentage of the gold which has been 
released from quartz and transferred to the gravel deposits 
is still dispersed along the eastern margin of the great val¬ 
ley of California, among banks of gravel too barren of the 
metal to render its extraction profitable. It is the first 
thousand feet in depth of the quartz lodes of the old placer 
mines, as yet unworked, which must be looked to in the com¬ 
ing centuries to keep the commerce of the world in motion by 
representing values in a universal exchange of the earth’s 
commodities and products. 

The cause of the formation of the fissures in which the 
ore bodies have been found is a matter that has perplexed all 
the geologists, inasmuch as the manner in which one fissure 
is thrown out by another places all the accepted theorizing 
at fault. 

If the crust of the earth is crushing together by the shrink¬ 
age of the interior, no deep fissure should present itself on 
the surface. But if any force did open two fissures down to 
a fluid interior so that they crossed each other obliquely, it 
is plain that each of the parts should be thrown toward the 
side of the acute angle. Let a blacksmith apply a cold chisel 
obliquely on the edge of an iron bar and he will see this to 
be the effect. 

But veins of ore crossing each other are thrown in the 
direction of the obtuse angle. This is almost an invariable 
rule, notwithstanding the impossibility of fitting the rule to 
the theory of a molten interior. 

If we should suppose, however, that the interior was an 
unyielding solid, and that from some cause there had been a 
shrinkage and cracking of the surface by which broad fis¬ 
sures were formed, they at first, immediately after being 
formed, would appear as thrown toward the acute angle; but 
a sagging toward the side deprived of lateral support (a 
movement observable in all formations and very marked in 


FORMA TION OF ORE BODIES. 


glacial action) would carry the acute angles past each other 
before the fissure would become filled. It would then appear 
as if thrown in the direction of the obtuse angle, as most 
veins and dykes do. 

But let us suppose these forces both to be acting at the 
same time. The contracting force would be with the lines 
of radius, or away from the point of intersection, in the di¬ 
rection of lines running intermediate to all the fissures, 
while lateral pressure would be directly toward each of the 
fissures and diagonal to the contracting force. 

Hence ,, a rigid earth causes veins and dykes to be thrown out 
in the direction of their obtuse angles. 

When one of the veins is continuous it should be expected 
that its trend would be curved and that the acute angles of 
the vein thrown out should be curved outward, each in the 
direction of the other, and evidence of the slipping of the 
walls, each upon the other, should characterize both veins. 

Horizontal formations, such as veins or beds of coal, are 
governed by the same law in the formation of faults, slips, 
hitches, steps, etc. They are all thrown up or down in the 
direction of their obtuse angles. Two fissures dipping to¬ 
ward each other have allowed the wedge-shaped mass to 
settle below the surrounding level in consequence of the 
shrinkage of surface formations; assuming the rigidity of 
the interior. 

Still, we might argue from this phenomenon that the inte¬ 
rior was everywhere and constantly expanding, and thereby 
producing these faults, were it not that an abundance of evi¬ 
dence proves the earth to be rigid. 

Under the head of the “ Formation of Oxides,’ 5 I have 
treated of the silicates of iron and vanadic acid as consti¬ 
tuting, in some cases, the gold-bearing matrix. They occur 
in formations of a sedimentary character where no evidence 
of the action of heat is betrayed. On the other hand, if we 
reckon the facility with which the iron and acid would enter 
into new combinations—thereby producing decomposition of 
the matrix—we shall have a new insight into the source from 
whence placer gold came; and shall learn that it has not been 


8 2 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


carried so far from it original position as has been supposed. 
We shall also find in its occurrence in the contact between 
sedimentary formations new proof that it is not of vol¬ 
canic origin. 

We have already seen the importance of liberated hydro¬ 
gen as an agent in transferring metals in solution. We have 
also shown, in the article on the “Formation of Oxides,” how 
the varying pressure, due to precessional movement and conse¬ 
quent formation of polar glaciers, was likely to result in the lib¬ 
eration of hydrogen. We have only to examine the evidence 
adduced by earthquake shocks and volcanic eruptions, to 
prove that hydrogen is liberated either in this or some other 
manner. Some of the hydrogen liberated takes up. sulphur 
and some carbonic acid, while some takes up only caloric; 
thus producing the varying temperatures of volcanoes, gey¬ 
sers, and ice-springs. 

Whether this escaping hydrogen is a part of the machin¬ 
ery of that great electric battery, the earth, is open to in¬ 
quiry. It suffices to note that hydrogen and electricity are 
both present in the battery; and that they are both active in 
transferring minerals and metals to new combinations. 

It may be that it is the escape of hyrdogen from the me¬ 
tallic state to the condition of a gas which feeds the battery 
of the earth’s magnet and gives us the phenomenon of po¬ 
larity. As glacial action, the wearing down of mountains, 
and the expanding of rocks by the absorption of oxygen 
under pressure seem to be the only forces which tend to im¬ 
prison and liberate hydrogen, it may be that these forces in 
a remote sense, are the parents of volcanoes, earthquakes, 
hot springs, oil wells, gas wells, artesian wells, and also metal¬ 
bearing veins. 

If our theory is correct, that hydrogen and oxygen are 
separated by pressure, then the greatest depth to which hy¬ 
drogen would be likely to penetrate the earth would be the 
point at which this pressure was constantly maintained. 
If we should conclude that the .minimum pressure was one 
thousand atmospheres, or say thirty thousand feet, we 
might add to this a maximum fluctuation of coast lines at the 


FORMA TION OF ORE BODIES . 


83 


poles, of another thirty thousand feet, and we should have 
sixty thousand feet as the greatest depth to which hydrogen 
could reach, making no allowance for the expanding of rocks 
by metamorphic action, while it would be limited to thirty 
thousand feet near the equator. It is probable that all the 
convulsions that rend the earth’s surface are limited to a su¬ 
perficial area, and that hydrogen, like electricity, only acts 
near the surface of the earth. Hydrogen, once separated 
from the combined oxygen, and imprisoned as a metal, could 
only be released as the result of the pressure becoming less 
than five hundred atmospheres. Hence, in equatorial re¬ 
gions, we should expect no trace of the forces which give 
rise to ore bodies below a depth of three miles in excess 
of volcanic upheavals, while they must be expected to 
grow weaker in the inverse ratio of the square of the depth. 
As a fact, no metal-bearing vein is known to penetrate 
the earth one mile, and when below the action of the at¬ 
mosphere, all veins must be expected to grow poorer with 
depth. 

Volcanic action may occur in the fissure and may not; but 
its effect in any contingency is to feed the current which 
carries the electric deposit to the fissure. The effect of vol¬ 
canic action is therefore world-wide, whether with or with¬ 
out heat in the ore body. Still, as we have before observed, 
there is more or less heat manifest in all chemical action, or 
at least more or less of a change of temperature. Excessive 
heat may, however, interfere with the combination and the 
crystallization. For as we have elsewhere seen, the cooling 
process, is in many cases, most conducive to crystallization. 

The interior of large sedimentary measures are not likely 
to be prolific in native metals except carried there by me¬ 
chanical force; but they are likely to be rich in all the sul- 
phurets. A trace of any or all the metals may be expected 
in any and every metal-bearing lead. 

The net-work of gold-bearing veins at Kernville, California, 
will serve to illustrate the theory of electric deposit, perhaps 
as well as any on the Pacific Slope. This net-work is called the 
Big Blue; and the Sumner Mine which covers a large ex- 


8 4 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


tent of this system has yielded about $3,000,000. These 
mines are situated at the eastern base of what is known as 
Greenhorn Mountain, being the western branch of the Sierra 
Nevada range. The mountain is composed of coarse syenitic 
granite down to near its base at Kern River. There a series 
of metamorphie formations set in, having in different places 
different characters, as diorite, porphyry, serpentine, mica- 
slate, gneiss, carbonate of lime, etc., etc. These metamor- 
phic formations continue to the north for a distance of-fifty 
or seventy-five miles; while to the west there towers this 
parallel accompaniment of coarse granite. 

South of Kernville there is a break in the trend of the 
Sierra Nevada range, and it curves to the west to make a 
junction with the Coast Range at Tejon Pass. 

The metamorphie formations bend also, and from a south¬ 
east course, further north, they now bear to the southwest. 
In the belly of this curve is where the Sumner Mine is 
located, near the contact between the granite and the altered 
rocks. Numerous small veins start in the granite and run, 
generally in a northeasterly direction, till they intercept the 
main ledge. These small veins have been found to carry 
much richer rock than the main ledge; but they were so 
narrow and it was necessary to remove so much waste 
matter in order to make room lor the workmen that their 
working was not so profitable. 

Where these small feeders entered the Big Blue a casing 
divided the main ledge into two compartments. What was 
known in the Sumner Mine as “the west vein was almost 
uniform in width, having a width of three or four feet. This 
part of the Big Blue received these feeders and yielded the 
only high grade ore taken from the main ledge. 

If we were to suppose electric currents to be passing 
through this granite in an easterly direction, we might ex¬ 
pect them to be glanced to the south along the wall of the 
fissure so long as the trend was to the southeast; but when 
we come to where the trend was to the west of south, with 
small fissures coming in from the southwest, it would be nec¬ 
essary for the current to jump the obstruction or recoil on 
its own course. 


FORMATION OF ORE BODIES. 


85 


We have already seen that it is under such circumstances 
as these that an electric current throws down its metallic 
burdens. 

It has elsewhere been mentioned in this work that trachite 
was known to overlie sedimentary formations, and to the 
end that mining may be reduced to a science and not be 
conducted on the hap-hazard plan heretofore adopted, it 
would be well for the miners of Colorado to examine into 
the question as to whether an electric current passing 
through overhanging porphyry and trachite may not have 
been the agent which deposited silver among the gravel beds 
of that region. 

If the electric current ran horizontally, of course it would 
not be likely to pass to an underlying formation when both 
formations were perfectly horizontal; but the “blanket 
ledges” of the regions now under consideration are not 
understood to be perfectly horizontal. 

As we have before remarked there is no reliance to be 
placed in theories about the pay being next to the hanging 
wall. It may come from the hanging wall and it may come 
from the toot wall; but hanging wall or foot wall, we would 
prefer to trust the western wall; and particularly if the 
larger fields of granite or crystalline rocks lay in that direc¬ 
tion. 

We assume that the highly oxidized formations give up to 
the electric current more readily than any other formations 
do, the metals which have least affinity for oxygen. If this 
is a fact it may be of but little concern to the practical 
miner why it is so; but as every theory which is not sus¬ 
ceptible of demonstration should be founded on reason, we 
will examine the question. 

We have heretofore stated reasons for believing that all 
the solvents of gold were not yet known to science; and it 
may be; and it would be reasonable to suppose, that an excess 
of oxygen robbed of their affinities those metals having least 
affinity for oxygen, and thus rendered them more susceptible 
to the action of the electric current. 

Gold has a strong affinity for both iron and sulphur; and 


86 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH . 


is generally associated with both, to some extent, in the 
ledge; but both of these substances have a strong affinity 
for oxygen, and when these properties of iron, sulphur and 
oxygen are united in prime equivalent proportions they are 
soluble in water. Hence we see how readily oxygen might 
become an agent in depriving the unoxidizable metals of 
their affinities. 

There may be many scientists engaged in drawing fat 
salaries who will ridicule these ideas respecting the forma¬ 
tion of ore bodies, but when they form a syndicate for the 
purpose of refunding the fifty million dollars squandered in 
the bottom of the Comstock, on the strength of their rec¬ 
ommendations, then will the world be ready to admit that 
they are at least honest in their convictions. 

Science has failed utterly, and most lamentably, in afford¬ 
ing the miner any aid in determining the location of gold 
deposits, and this failure has done much to bring it into dis¬ 
repute. 


Electro-Chemical Agencies. 


If we still had doubt as to the forces employed in the for¬ 
mation of ore bodies, we might learn a lesson from the te¬ 
dious routine of experiments which have culminated in the 
most advanced system of amalgamating silver ores. It was 
formerly held that the bluestone, or magistral, as the Mexi¬ 
cans called this rude preparation of sulphate of copper, 
was put in for the purpose of supplying sulphuric acid. 
This was not the case; and probably sulphuric acid cannot be 
used without loss. On the other hand, the utility of the 
bluestone is to secure a double electro-chemical action and 
reaction of chlorides upon sulphates and sulphates upon 
chlorides. Hence, only such sulphates can be used as are 
ready to give up sulphur for chlorine. This is peculiarly the 
case with sulphate of copper. The soda in the saline men¬ 
struum takes the soda from a portion of the copper sulphate 
in exchange for the chlorine, while a portion of the chlorine 
is transferred to the mercury. The mercury in its turn gives 
up its chlorine to the silver in exchange for sulphur. Both 
sulphurets and oxides are thus converted into chlorides at 
the same time, and the silver is released in turn from its 
chlorine by electro-chemical action produced in the same 
way in which salt excites the voltaic pile. It will thus be 
seen that there must be enough sulphur present to disengage 
the requisite amount of chlorine from the salt to convert 
all the silver into chlorides. If any one of these agents is 
lacking, these combinations and exchanges cannot take place. 
A varying proportion of oxides and sulphurets of silver may 
determine the ratio of calomel and corrosive sublimate to be 
formed, but it is not at present seen that this would retard 
amalgamation, so long as there is sulphate of soda enough 

(87) 



88 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


formed to furnish the requisite amount of chlorine. The 
tendency of this subtle substance to form either muriatic 
acid or oxy-muriatic acids should accommodate it to the 
varying ratios of oxygen and sulphur in combination with 
the silver ores. 

Since the introduction of iron in the composition of the 
amalgamating machinery, amalgamators have sought to pre¬ 
vent the precipitation of cement copper into the amalgam, as 
the result of the surrender of the sulphuric acid of the blue- 
stone to the iron of the machinery, in consequence of the iron 
coming in contact with the menstruum, by the addition of 
sulphuric acid. This acid, wdiile directly tending to recon¬ 
vert the cement copper to bluestone, has indirectly the op¬ 
posite effect. It removes the copper coating from the iron,, 
qnd keeps it constantly exposed to the ravages of the sul¬ 
phuric acid of the bluestone, and in the end aggravates the 
evil it was intended to remedy. 

Doubtless many of the failures of mill-men, in treating 
ores which assayed well, have arisen from a disregard of the 
laws governing the forces with which nature combines and 
transfers metals to different affinities. Some of the failures 
may have arisen from the circumstance of leaving the 
hydro-carbon in the ore, whereby the quicksilver was coated, 
and floated away before chemical action had commenced. 
To obviate this difficulty either heat or alkali must be used 
first if there is any great percentage of free hydro-carbon 
present. 

As we have already remarked, in treating of the formation 
of ore bodies, probably no chemical action can be employed 
without generating currents of electricity. We may now 
further remark, that probably no successful amalgamation of 
base ore can be performed without them. Hence, having 
ceased to regard the metal-bearing vein as the receptacle of 
a mechanical injection, it becomes a matter of prime impor¬ 
tance to consider the prime equivalent ratios by which sub¬ 
stances combine, as well as the relative strength of varying 
ratios. Thus iron combines with sulphur in two different 
ratios. In the one, the proportion of sulphur is, say fifty-three 


ELECTRO-CHEMICAL AGENCIES. 


per cent; in the other, less than forty. Now, let us suppose 
that this excess of thirteen percent of sulphur is held by a 
weaker combination than that with which the forty per cent 
is combined, and weaker than the affinity of copper for sul¬ 
phur. Under these circumstances, let us see what would 
take place if we should mingle bi-sulphide of iron with oxide 
of copper. The thirteen per cent of sulphur would then pass 
to the copper, if the condition was propitious, and convert 
the oxide of copper into sulphate, in which state it is soluble 
and could be leeched off into a tank, and then brought into 
contact with scraps of pure iron. The metallic iron of the 
tank would in turn draw the sulphuric acid from the copper, 
the iron would be dissolved, and cement copper—the purest 
form of the metal—would be precipitated to the bottom of 
the tank ready to be dried and sold. We should thus dis¬ 
pense with that tedious routine of eleven different smeltings 
employed in England, in the refining of copper, where half 
the copper of the world, was, until recently, produced. 

Since the properties composing minerals are only found 
combined, chemically, in prime equivalent proportions, and 
in certain fixed forms of crystallization, and, since these con¬ 
ditions are in many cases (and presumably in all) the effect 
of electro-chemical action, it becomes pretty clear that ig¬ 
neous action had nothing to do with it. When we see the 
whole process carried through by mill-men in two or three 
hours, by the aid of steam, and by Mexicans in one summer, by 
the aid of the natural heat of the atmosphere and the heat en¬ 
gendered by chemical action, we see how leisurely nature 
may have worked in building-up metal-bearing veins without 
going back even three millions of years—and the most ardent 
supporters of the igneous theory concede the earth to be one 
hundred millions of years old, and without any token of a 
beginning. 

Instance the manner of forming an amalgam of the metal 
calcium with mercury. The chlorine is disengaged and th e 
metallic calcium is amalgamated. Metallic sodium can be 
amalgamated with hot mercury without any other agency. 
Either of these amalgams would suggest themselves as an 



90 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


excellent form in which to introduce the mercury in amalga¬ 
mating carbonates. By such means electro-chemical action 
can be made to dispose of the carbon, so troublesome in many 
efforts at amalgamation. We must look to the manner in 
which nature employs re-agents. It is said these forces may 
be seen to-day, active in the employ of nature, in the produc 
tion of various ores, at Sulphur Banks, in this State, and with 
a temperature below blood heat. 

Thermal springs are doubtless the effect of rapid electro¬ 
chemical action, but are remote from the causes which form 
metal-bearing veins. The temperature of the springs at the 
Sulphur'Bank (95°) is less than the water in the Comstock, 
and we have before shown that the heat of the Comstock is 
limited to the fissure. On the other hand the fissure is lim¬ 
ited to the surface. 

Selenium melts at a temperature of a few degrees above 
the boiling point, and softens at a temperature of 176° F. 
We are just entering a new era of gold mining, based o n 
discoveries of gold in chemical combinations with selenium’ 
tellurium and vanadium, and yet it certainly was not the 
advocates of fusion who taught us to look among these fusi¬ 
ble and volatile substances for any deposit of the precious 
metals, much less to find them in chemical combination. 
Here lies the new El Dorado, in all probability, disguised 
by a present mode of assay; and when its treasures are un¬ 
earthed we shall discover that electro-chemical agencies 
alone can explain the characteristics of elementary combina¬ 
tions. 

To say nothing of the auriferous ores of which we, as yet, 
know comparatively nothing—gold is found in very close 
combination with ores of lead, iron, copper, antimony, mer¬ 
cury, tellurium, vanadium, selenium, calcium, silicium, zinc, 
arsenic, bismuth, baryta, fluorine, alumina, and most of 
their combinations. 

To assume that mercury, or the still more volatile metal 
selenium is erupted is absurd. The same may be said of 
tellurium, and yet there probably is not a mine in California 
containing tellurium that is not chiefly valuable for its gold, 


ELECTRO-CHEMICAL AGENCIES. 


9i 


notwithstanding all its other combinations. But this is not 
all, gold in combination with tellurium is an ore, as much so 
as the combination of sulphur and lead. The time may 
come in which chemists will recognize the fact that gold 
itself combines with sulphur in a closer union than has here¬ 
tofore been suspected. We talk of free gold and gold in 
suspension. The same expressions would sound like absurd¬ 
ities if applied to the ores of lead; and who is the man that 
can prove a less perfect combination, in certain instances, in 
the one case than in the other. The fact is well recognized 
that the combination of silver with sulphur is the same as 
that of lead. Nor is it safe to say, as yet, that we have dis¬ 
covered all the solvents of gold. 

Every miner should have known long ago, that a combi¬ 
nation of nitric and muriatic acids would dissolve gold, yet 
cases have presented themselves to the writer’s attention, 
where bankers sold nitric acid purposely adulterated with 
muriatic acid, with the hope that they might buy in the cast¬ 
off acid for a trifle after being used in cleaning amalgam. 
Again many miners have been induced to follow nitric acid 
with salt, in cleaning gold. Of course a large amount of 
gold was lost in both cases. If a little lunar caustic had been 
applied to the acid in the first case mentioned the presence 
of the muriatic acid would at once have been both detected 
and removed. It is a question as to whether any great per¬ 
centage of mill-men to-day understand exactly the combined 
effect of salt and sulphur in the treatment of gold sulphides. 

Miners must learn that every solid substance constituting 
the earth has its chemical solvents, and that in all probability 
the great bulk of the precious metals are dispersed through 
the earth to-day, in combination with those solvents. 

The conclusion we should reach, then, would be that a 
heavy deposit of secondary and metamorphic rocks reposing 
against a heavy granite formation to the west would give 
rise to ore bodies, hot springs, earthquakes, and all the other 
phenomena in which hydrogen acts a part, whether it be in 
combination with sulphur or carbon, as in hot springs and 
oil wells, or alone as in the curious production of ice beneath 
the earth’s surface. 


92 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


In the article on the “Formation of Oxides,” we have quoted 
Prof. Hanks, of the State Mining Bureau.in regard to the 
occurrence of the rare mineral, roscoelite, which is found in 
combination with gold. It is found between slate and sand¬ 
stone walls and nothing in the character or analysis to show 
any different origin than that of kaolin clay, found in nearly 
every seam or fracture of granite rock. It clearly is not the 
result of eruption, and the contact of the walls is necessarily 
and altogether superficial. The principal ingredients in the 
composition are, of silex, forty per cent; aluminum, fourteen 
percent; and vanadic acid, twenty-eight per cent. Kaolin clay 
has a composition of about forty-six per cent silex; thirty-five 
per cent alumina; and some lime, iron, etc., ns has the roscoe¬ 
lite. The principal difference in the chemical properties of 
the two minerals is that in roscoelite vanadic acid replaces a 
portion of the alumina. We have before remarked on the 
formation of kaolin. 

Recurring again to the report of Prof. Hanks, he says of 
the divisibility of gold:— 

“Mr. Cosmo Newbery, Chemist of the Geological Survey 
of Victoria, Australia, has made some ver}' interesting inves¬ 
tigations bearing on the divisibility of gold. The timber 
used to support the mine was assayed and in nearly every 
instance found to contain gold.” 

In a letter to the author, Prof. Hanks writes as follows:— 

Mr. Stephen Barton , Lime Kiln , Tulare County, Cal .,— 
Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your very interesting letter, 
dated September 14. I am of the opinion that gold is never 
mineralized in nature except during deposition of minerals in 
veins. Experiments made by me years ago convinced me 
that gold, in sylvanite and other telluric minerals, was in the 
metallic state, and that the so-called mineral was a mechani¬ 
cal mixture of tellurium and gold. I do not think that gold 
can escape from a skillful chemist during an assay. If you 
will turn to folio 386, in my last report, you will find consid¬ 
erable information concerning tellurium. The tellurides in 
the mine you mention have not been studied, but the min¬ 
eral resembles altaite, telluride of lead, some of the ore is 


ELECTRO-CHEMICAL AGENCIES . 93 

rich, and others are almost without gold. I am pleased to ob¬ 
tain the information you send, as to the occurrence of gold in 
your county, and shall file your letter for future reference. 
Hoping you will excuse delay in the reply to your letter, 

I remain very truly, Henry Gr. Hanks, 

State Mineralogist . 

In the short chapter on “ Electric Currents,” we have en¬ 
deavored to state, in concise form, the law governing the ac¬ 
tion of electricity, as understood by the most advanced elec¬ 
tricians of the day. 

In the chapter on the “ Formation of Oxides,” we have tried 
to show that it was loss of affinity which caused the more 
highly oxidized formations to give up their gold. Yet it must 
not be supposed that the degree of metamorphism is what 
will determine the wealth of the deposit. On the contrary 
the rule that time is the measure of change will apply to the 
growth of mineral veins, and explain why a metamorphic 
slate may be more productive of gold lodes than a recent 
granite. 

We have shown by the most conclusive evidence that the 
Mother Lode” was not the chief source from whence the 
great “placer” deposit of California gold came. 

It would now be in order to examine the geology of the 
region adjacent to the “placer” mines, and see whether this 
theory has any foundation in science. We will start with 
Calaveras County. The Bear Mountain range is a broad belt 
of highly metamorphosed rock, which separates the copper 
regions of the foot-hills from the gold-bearing formations. 
Although these same formations do not appear on the land¬ 
scape in other counties as a distinctive mountain chain, yet 
the “bed-rock” in the western margin of the placer mines 
will show that Calaveras is no exception to a general rule: 
We have also shown elsewhere that a carboniferous belt ex¬ 
tended along or near the eastern margin of this gold-bearing 
region. We have also shown that a diagram of assays for 
fine gold—or gold more than .900 fine—would carry us di¬ 
rectly along the trend of this carboniferous formation. 

As to the more highly oxidized granites further east, their 


94 


BARTON’S RIGID EARTH. 


origin probably dates back to the time when the “placer” 
gravel of California was being covered with “volcanic ash 
stratified by water,” as Prof. Whitney has said. Those gran¬ 
ites then are in many cases more recent than the gravel de¬ 
posits of the Miocene river-beds. 

But while dealing with the question of highly oxidized 
formations, we must not forget the relation which the ocean 
bears to the magnetic earth. Of all the oxides, hydrogen is 
the most highly oxidized in the form of water. Instances 
need not be referred to or enlarged on to prove the tendency 
of the solvents to carry metals and minerals to the sea. It 
would not, perhaps, be going beyond reasonable bounds to 
assume that all the elementary substances may be obtained 
from sea-water. Water is a good conductor of electric cur¬ 
rents. For ages before the Miocene drift California rivers 
met the ocean in the region of the placer mines. Here, then, 
we have another reason why the carboniferous belt should 
be a gold-bearing formation. 

The Mother Lode marks the line of a great fissure; but at 
an early period in the geology of the region that fissure be¬ 
came filled with substances having a stronger affinity for oxy¬ 
gen than gold; and most of the gold was carried by the elec¬ 
tric currents of the earth to regions less metamorphosed, or 
at least, less oxidized. 

In undertaking the study of the walls of a lode it would 
appear, therefore, that we must start in with a broad concep¬ 
tion of the age and metamorphism of the whole region under 
consideration. It will not do to rely upon the immediate con¬ 
tact, for an electric connection may continue directly across 
the line of contact in some cases, while in others the contact 
determines the location of the fissure. It should be expected 
that an old system of trap dykes would be likely to carry 
the current across the line of contact; and such may have 
been the agencies which diffused the gold through the carbon¬ 
iferous region of the Columbia marbles. Under such circum¬ 
stances we would have to conclude that Overman’s declara¬ 
tion, that a paying mine of the precious metals was never to 
be found between two lime walls, only referred to his observa- 


ELECTRO-CHEMICAL AGENCIES. 


95 

tions, and cannot be taken as a rule applying to the immedi¬ 
ate contact, or, if taken as a rule, then exceptions must be 
allowed for all electric connections across the line of contact. 

We expect that for centuries to come the carboniferous for¬ 
mations in the now half-abandoned gold-fields of California 
will betray rich “pockets” of that metal, and that it will 
come from “rock in place,” as the law of Congress defines 
the gold-bearing lode. When such ore bodies are found the 
miner must be prepared to find new combinations. For as 
we have already shown, lime is unfavorable to the formation 
of a quartz lode. And if, as has already been surmised, there 
exist other solvents of gold than those now known, we must 
be prepared to find ores of gold. And why not? The whole' 
logic of our examination tends to such a fact. When we have 
said that gold has no affinity for oxygen we have stated its 
chief distinguishing peculiarity as a metal. With all the 
scientific research, which seems to have ended with the con¬ 
clusion reached by Prof. Hanks, that ‘‘the gold was in 
.mechanical combination,” the fact that gold tinges some 
ores green has not been explained, and^seems inexplicable, 
except on the theory that the gold is in chemical com¬ 
bination. 

The humble judgment of the author is that “mechanics,” 
unaided by chemistry, will utterly fail in ever separating 
gold from all its combinations with sulphur, which result 
should certainly be possible, if it is only “mechanically com¬ 
bined.” It will be noticed that there is a very wide differ¬ 
ence in the quoted opinions of Prof. Hanks and Prof. Blake 
as to how the gold got into the roscoelite mentioned else¬ 
where. The probability is that neither one would be able to 
harmonize his theory with observed facts. It only shows 
how many different origins scientists will ascribe to the 
metal-bearing vein. 

We see, then, that the theory of a rigid earth rises to the 
dignity of a question of prime importance. It is not the 
merits of an abstract or an abstruse science, which is alone 
involved, but the grandest achievements of civilized life. 


Concluding Remarks. 


Scientists may regard the foregoing as being too much at 
war with long-established theories to be accepted. It will 
be remembered, however, that there are many perplexing 
phenomena which accepted theories fail to elucidate. 

Attempts have been made to show that the precessional 
movement of the equinoctial points upon the plane of the 
ecliptic, or the swinging of the poles of the earth around 
the circuit of the heavens was due to the attraction of 
the sun and moon upon the higher regions of the equator. 
The reasoning is too complex, and the chance for error 
greater than the effect accounted for. On the other hand 9 
while it can readily be shown that both hemispheres are 
weighted alike, and that any bisecting of the earth into two 
hemispheres will cut the center of gravity, still, it cannot be 
shown that the two sides of either of the poles are weighted 
alike. The great mountain chains run diagonally around the 
earth. The w r ell-known laws of mechanics and motion teach 
that this should produce precessional movement, and the at¬ 
traction of the sun upon the equator is only consistent with 
the merging of that movement into itself as the attraction 
of the earth is with the motion of the pendulum. 

True, the loss of force is not exactly proportioned to the 
increase of time, during which one pole is inclined to the 
sun during perihelion. But the reasoning of the gentleman 
referred to must proceed upon the theory that the inclina¬ 
tion of the earth’s axis was a condition precedent, and there¬ 
fore a cause; whereas it is only an effect of precessional 
motion. 

The attraction of the sun and moon upon the higher points 
of the equator are not both exactly in the same direction- 

(96) 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 


97 


is the difference distributed with precision to all points on 
the equator? This of itself might and would originate a 
slight precessional movement if there was no conflict, but in 
a much shorter period. It doubtless aids to modify the ex- 
teut of inclination periodically. 

There is one other reason why the sun’s attraction upon 
the equator cannot produce the swinging of the poles. 
There is a movement of the major axis of the earth’s orbjt 
directly in conflict with precessional motion,, and iii a period 
more than four times as long, thus distributing solar at¬ 
traction. 

As it relates to the' evidence of former high temperature 
in polar regions, it cannot be shown that there ever was a 
higher mean temperature of the whole earth than now, or 
that present conditions fail to explain the change. 

Enough has already been said to suggest that light and 
friction may both change the prime equivalent ratio of affin¬ 
ity of substances for calorie, and that the fact of its exist¬ 
ence is not therefore inconsistent with the principles of 
chemistry, while the reduction of the elements of water to a 
condition of greater compactity by chemical means, when 
pressure will not do it while they are combined, shows that 
the heat^disengaged by decomposition must have represented 
space when in latent combination. 

I am not aware that any writer has undertaken to explain 
the throw-out of veins toward their obtuse angles on the 
theory of a melted interior. 

The theory of a fluid earth fails to give good philosophy to 
the phenomena of tides in the ocean, since if the earth is a 
fluid mass it should yield to the same force. 

The idea of folding along the margin of continents in con¬ 
sequence of the shrinkage of the interior of the earth does 
not explain the action which takes place. Upheavals occur 
during periods of disturbances, and subsidences follow during 
periods of repose. 

Against the supposed case of cosmical vapors in the sun’s 
atmosphere it may be urged that there is no cosmical vapor 
in the atmosphere of the earth. Well, let us see what we 


98 


BARTON'S RIGID EARTH. 


have got: About two millions of miles from the earth, mov¬ 
ing in a very eccentric orbit around the earth,in a period the 
same as our year, is a body of cosmical vapor known as the 
“zodiacal light.” Saturn presents this phenomenon much 
nearer the body of the planet. But we are willing to con¬ 
cede that the revelations of the spectroscope are not under¬ 
stood. On the other hand, if there is any utility in the dis¬ 
coveries of the spectroscope, why are geologists always at 
fault when they touch the earth? 

Metal-bearing veins do not extend below the beds of the 
deeper river gorges, neither at those points, nor at points in¬ 
termediate “where there are high hills,” as J. Boss Browne 
would say. Hence, veins do not continue to grow wider with 
depth. To recapitulate then as follows:— 

1. Precessional motion arises from a diagonal weighting of 
polar regions. 

2. A wearing down of mountain chains has lessened pre¬ 
cessional motion, and at the same time filled in the deep sea 
connection with polar regions, thus changing the climate of 
high latitudes. 

3. The prime equivalent ratio of affinity of caloric is 
changed by light and friction. 

4. Veins are thrown in the direction of their obtuse angles 
as the result of a rigid interior of the earth. 

5. Metal-bearing veins do not penetrate the earth one 
mile below the water line, nor cut below the deep river beds 
of California. 

6. The sun's rays do not exhibit the phenomena of ordi¬ 
nary combustion. 

7. The oldest of known rocks are sedimentary. 

8. There is no evidence of a former higher temperature at 
the equator. 

9. The phenomena of tides is based on the philosophy of 
a rigid earth. 

10. Periods of disturbance elevate coast lines; periods of 
repose depress them, and therefore, the theory of folding is 
at fault. 

11. The rule that high coast lines face the broader oceans 
applies best to the larger islands. 


CONCLUDING REMARKS . 


99 

12. The trend of mountain formations is sometimes at 
right angles with coast lines. 

13. Electric currents are the base of the magnet, and en¬ 
circle the surface of the magnetic earth, running from west 
to east. 

14. All the phenomena of the metal-bearing veins may be 
produced by electro-chemical action, without the aid of heat. 

15. The timber used in mines becomes charged with gold 
hy electro-chemical action. 

16. Gold and roscoelite form in the contact fissures between 
aqueous formations. 

17. The observed facts show that the crushing force met 
with in stone quarries is in the direction of the axis of 
mountain chains, and not from the sea. 

Hence, we conclude that the theory of a melted interior of 
the earth is without foundation, and that the forces employed 
in forming ore bodies only act near the surface. 

The geometrical ratio of the relation between the depres¬ 
sion of the earth’s poles and the breadth of the earth’s 
sphere of attraction in the nebular hypothesis speaks of the 
growth and form of the earth as coming from cosmical va¬ 
por. That there may be forces in nature which disperse as 
well as aggregate cosmos we will not deny, but thatthe tend¬ 
ency of nature is altogether in the direction of waste and 
ruin we seriously question. 

In the economy of nature there is nothing lost; the ele¬ 
ments abide forever. 


THE END. 














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